SERENATA DE BACALO EN LA PLACITA DE SANTURCE AND THE NEPHEW FROM ABROAD

The Puerto Rican salad is named after the old romantic practice called “serenatas”, because it was the dish served to Orpheus’s children/men, troubadours, musicians and suitors, who late at night would bring music to the homes where their motives for the love songs were being held in “los brazos de Morfeo” (Puerto Ricans -before USA education changed the content of what was studied in schools-, at the time when serenades were quite common, would use Greek mythological characters to describe such experience). It includes shredded dried salted cod fish, onions, tomatoes, peppers, avocados, olives, capers, olive oil, cilantro, culantro, oregano brujo, salt and black pepper, served with small boiled cubes of several varietes of yams (at least four kinds of yautías: martinica, lila, blanca y amarilla; and the biggest of the yams: ñames), papas, batatas, and the cassava root. A simple dish that is also quite common during Lent and Holy Week. One of my nephews born and raised in the USA does not seem to eat anything else when he visits Puerto Rico and goes to the “fonda” La Alcapurria Quemá in La Placita de Santurce. I have always wondered why. When I tried on my own, to figure out the reasons for his addiction to the dish, it came to me, that since he knows the history of how Puerto Rican cuisine came about (he is a well educated gourmand and wine connoisseur), it is the emblematic role played by the Serenata de Bacalao, as representative of a particular expression of our creole culture (fusion cuisine is called nowadays), music and love, in his sense of identity, a historical continuum. Some people eat it for the pleasure of the dish, and it is a “delicIa”, but also because we all want to be part of history and food is a great artifact to connect us to the larger world; more so, when is interwoven with romance and music. By the way, while waiting for the Serenata, he also stuffs himself with the queen of Puerto Rican fritters: alcapurrias. Trust me, he can and knows how to eat.