Reheat: What's "Poor People's Food"?

Nicole Taylor went through a phase where she rejected the soul food she grew up with. She called it all "slave food." Truth is, we all make judgments about what food is for which people, whether or not we realize it.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean, whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. As someone who has been lucky enough to go to Napa Valley, I can tell you, it's everything people say it is. Beautiful scenery, quaint, beautiful towns, and phenomenal food and

• 0:44Dan Pashman?

  drink everywhere you go. I don't even know that much about wine, but I know that every glass of wine I had in Napa Valley was excellent. I mean, there's no bad glass of wine and no bad meal. Choose between hundreds of wineries, tasting rooms, and chef-led restaurants from a low-key lunch on a vineyard terrace to a full tasting menu paired by the winemaker. Plan your trip at visitnapavalley.com.

• 1:16Dan Pashman?

  Hey, it's Dan, back with another Sporkful reheat for you. And this one is a double header. We are revisiting two episodes we originally made as part of a series called Other People's Food. This series got a lot of attention when it came out. We got a lot of great feedback on it. It was sort of our first foray, I think, into more substantive, more serious, more long-form types of explorations of complicated topics. So I'm excited to let some of you hear it for the first time. And this one came by request from a listener named Sahitha, who wrote, "I was intrigued to find that the episode, Other People's Food Part Two, What's Poor People's Food, was mentioned in certain discourse about cooking, budgeting, and perceptions of quote-unquote ethnic ingredients. This insight would be timely in this period of uncertainty and unrest about American identity and economic fragility."

• 2:01Dan Pashman?

  Thank you so much for the request, Sahitha. We're gonna play that episode in the first half of our show today. Then we'll revisit our episode with actress Rosie Perez from that same series. In our conversation, Rosie opens up about her personal experiences with stereotypes around food and culture. Of course, remember, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to pull out of the deep freezer and share, let us know. Clearly, we take requests. We're taking one today. Send me a voice memo or email to [email protected]. Thanks so much, and enjoy these two episodes from our series, Other People's Food.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Definitely when I became like a teenager and went off to college, I totally did not eat any pork. I called it all slave food.

• 2:44Dan Pashman?

  This is Nicole Taylor. She's the African American author of The Up-South Cookbook. She grew up in Athens, Georgia, lives in New York now.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  I'm like, I'm not eating the old school neckbones and rice, stuff now that all these fancy chefs are doing in their restaurants. I just thought it was like, you know, it was poor people's food. I didn't have enough education about what that food meant. For my mother and for my aunts and, you know, the whole entire community, this is the food that reminded them of when things were, you know, really happy.

• 3:16Dan Pashman?

  And what changed?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  I moved to New York City. That's when it, that's when it all started. The longer I got in New York, the more I longed for home and the food of home.

• 3:29Dan Pashman?

  Today on The Sporkful, our series, Other People's Food continues. How does what we think about different people affect what we think about their food? When other people have stereotypes about our food, how does that change the way we feel about ourselves? And how does all this affect what we actually end up eating? We'll find out. Stick around.

• 4:00Dan Pashman?

  From WNYC Studios, this is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. This is part two of our series, Other People's Food. Today, we're going to focus on the ways that food and identity overlap, the ways that stereotypes of people affect perceptions of food, and how all that feeds back into how we feel about ourselves and the food that ends up on our plates. As I said, Nicole Taylor grew up in Athens, Georgia. Her up-south cookbook draws from her southern upbringing, as well as her past eight years spent living in Brooklyn. Her food isn't easily categorized. That's the way she likes it.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  I do embrace the word authentic, and that means being your authentic self, but not authentic in terms of food. Everybody has their own thing of how they make a certain thing, like fried chicken. There are a million gazillion ways to do fried chicken. You know, I use coconut milk in my fried chicken.

• 4:59Dan Pashman?

  Mmm. Can we just like talk for a minute about fried chicken?

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Oh, let's.

• 5:06Dan Pashman?

  What is your relationship with fried chicken, Nicole?

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. First of all, I did not have fried chicken every day. I think a lot of people, and when I moved to New York, this is a very, very funny story, man. I cannot, I can't tell you how many times people come up to me and say, "Where can I find the best fried chicken?"

• 5:25Dan Pashman?

  No.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Yes, and I'm like, I guess they ask me that because I'm from the South, and I'm like, uh...

• 5:30Dan Pashman?

  Really? Nicole, you think that's the only reason?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, why? Because I'm a black woman.

• 5:36Dan Pashman?

  Maybe.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  So you want me to keep it real? Yeah, okay, yeah. Why they keep asking me where the best fried chicken? I'm like, ask all these other people in New York that have been here forever. I don't know. I've only been here a year or so. And so my clever response would be, in my kitchen.

• 5:51Dan Pashman?

  It is interesting that like it is this food that is kind of fraught in some ways and also so beloved.

• 6:01Dan Pashman?

  Like, have you ever been in a situation where you felt like self-conscious about eating fried chicken or loving fried chicken?

• 6:07Speaker 01

  So, I mean, I grew up always knowing that when you're around white people and other folks don't eat fried chicken and watermelon. Sometimes, yeah, if I'm going out to a business dinner with someone else, I won't order the fried chicken because I'm like, they assume that I'm gonna order that. So I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna get the salad or the fish, because there was a shame associated with those foods.

• 6:27Dan Pashman?

  How many times would we have to go out to eat together before you have fried chicken with me?

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Oh, a lot. A lot of times that I would have to curse and like get drunk.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Before I feel comfortable eating a fried chicken.

• 6:40Dan Pashman?

  What if I ordered fried chicken? That would make you feel more comfortable?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  No. As a black American, a black woman from the South, you know, particularly when you're doing food stuff, you never want to get put into a box. And so you're constantly aware of kind of cultural foods. And what, at least I am, and how they play into other people's psyche. I'm proud of fried chicken. But yeah, there are still things about my cultural foods that I'm aware other folks just, they still have those stereotypes. And I don't feel like explaining, so I would just rather order a salad, you know?

• 7:17Dan Pashman?

  The truth is, those judgments about what foods are for what type of people, which foods are for poor people, to use Nicole's words, we all do that in one way or another, even if we don't realize it.

• 7:30Speaker 02

  Most Americans would hesitate to pay $30 for Chinese food. But they wouldn't bat an eyelid to pay hundreds of dollars. Sometimes, over the last couple of years, the most expensive New York City restaurants have been Japanese restaurants.

• 7:45Dan Pashman?

  This is Professor Krishnendu Ray, Chair of the Food Studies Department at NYU. He says there's a reason why we're willing to pay so much more for some cultures' foods than others. And it's actually not about the food at all.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Most of the Japanese we are familiar with are business folks, are executives. But right now, most Americans associate Chinese food with relatively impoverished Chinese immigrants. If a group of people are doing well, and if a country is doing well economically, we tend to upgrade our estimation of their culture. And that feeds back into whether we consider it cheap ethnic food or we consider it expensive foreign food.

• 8:26Dan Pashman?

  This idea that some foods are perceived as higher class than others, Professor Ray calls this the hierarchy of taste. He says over time, it changes.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Give it 20 more years, Chinese immigration is going to slow down, like it happened with Europe, European immigration. And once that happens, we don't meet relatively poor and impoverished Chinese here.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Our valuation of Chinese food is going to change in terms of class terms. That happened with Italian food. That Italian food, in fact, became prestigious only after Italian immigration effectively stopped of poor people.

• 9:04Dan Pashman?

  And, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean, generations ago, Italian people were made fun of for smelling like garlic.

• 9:09Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 9:10Dan Pashman?

  And their food was considered low class.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, nutritionists and public health specialists were full of disdain for Italian food as not good for us because they were eating all this spicy food. In, in those days, this was considered especially garlic. And the argument was that all this garlic led to craving for alcohol. And what I like about American culture is, in fact, the possibility of breaking through it, which I think makes American food very interesting and much more open minded than many of the nationalist cuisines of other parts of the world.

• 9:43Dan Pashman?

  You know, with every new immigrant cuisine, as it breaks through to mainstream American food culture, there's often one dish that's sort of like the tip of the spear. For sushi, I think of California rolls. For Indian food, chicken tikka masala. For Thai food, pad thai. I asked Professor Ray what these foods have in common.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Let's say chicken tikka masala, which is, it goes through a series of translations. It becomes sweeter, it becomes redder, it becomes less spicy. Because we have a natural proclivity towards sweeter and fattier things. It's easier to eat them, drink them. That will allow the translation to happen, which is also a form of bastardization or hybridization. And then, maybe after a generation, you will have its redefinition.

• 10:31Dan Pashman?

  Right, and then someone comes along and says, no, no, no, I'm going to give you the authentic.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 10:34Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Now, the new wave Indian restaurants are no longer calling the chicken tikka masala chicken tikka masala. They're calling it butter chicken. Like I used to eat when I was in Delhi University, in Delhi, in Hindu college. I used to eat butter chicken.

• 10:45Dan Pashman?

  That's what they called it?

• 10:46Speaker 02

  That's the closest thing to chicken tikka masala.

• 10:49Dan Pashman?

  So new food arrives, gets watered down, gets popular, then gets redone to be more quote unquote "authentic." But Professor Ray says for a culture's food to make it that far today, it needs more than sugar and fat. It needs a good social media strategy. Some dishes just don't work on Instagram.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Lot of third world cuisines, lot of peasant cuisines that taste fantastic does not stand up on a plate. So it does not look very good. You can't make a very pretty picture out of it, which I think also leads to a loss of certain kinds of food. I personally find stews and food that falls flat on its face.

• 11:29Dan Pashman?

  Saucy foods.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Saucy food, the most beautiful food, the most tasty food. Okay, but those foods don't look very good most of the time in a picture.

• 11:38Dan Pashman?

  The reason they don't look very good actually comes down to the basic rules of photography. Like here, I'll give you an example. Beef stew, sitting in the pot, the meat and the potatoes and the carrots are all submerged and all you see is this flat brown liquid. Have you ever tried to take a picture of your beef stew to post online? It is impossible to make it look good. Okay, but now I want you to picture something different. Picture a bright white plate. And on that plate, you have a pile of nice, big juicy chunks of cooked beef. And maybe that takes up a third of the plate. Then you have a pile of carrots, cooked carrots, bright orange. And then the rest of the plate, you have a little mound of potatoes, cooked potatoes. Maybe they sell the skins on them.

• 12:23Dan Pashman?

  Then you take that beef broth from the stew and you drizzle it over the food on the plate. That looks good, right? You can picture that. You're getting hungry just picturing that. It's all the same ingredients as the beef stew, but now it's three dimensional instead of flat. It's colorful instead of monochromatic. That same principle gives chicken tandoori a leg up over a doll and blintzes an advantage over borscht. And what Professor Ray is saying is that some cultures' foods have way more dishes like beef stew than others.

• 12:55Dan Pashman?

  And that makes a difference.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Media is absolutely central to propagation and popularity of a cuisine and what becomes important. And with the excessive, I think, visualization, the role of the visual in the current media, it constrains what we pick from a cuisine.

• 13:13Dan Pashman?

  The other constraint on what gets picked comes from the food media: cookbooks, food blogs, TV, newspapers, and, yes, podcasts. As much as we hear about the democratization of media, there are still gatekeepers. And some people have to break through more gates than others. Which brings us back to Nicole Taylor, the cookbook author we heard from earlier in the show. She and I were joined by Chitra Agrawal, who writes a food blog called ABCDs of Cooking. ABCD stands for American Born Confused Dacey. Dacey is a slang term for a South Asian. Chitra's currently working on her first cookbook.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  I wanted to do a book specifically on South Indian home cooking. And I think that the US market in general has not kind of gone to the point where they understand the regional differences of Indian cooking. I mean, when we were trying to sell the book through, it was, oh, well, we already have an Indian author, so we're going to pass on that.

• 14:12Dan Pashman?

  People said that to you?

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Well, they said it to my agent.

• 14:18Dan Pashman?

  And what do you think when you hear that?

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, it doesn't make me feel good because I also feel that it's that you get pigeonholed into a group. Even though my book may have different content and a different perspective and talking about a whole other type of cooking from India, if there's another author that is doing an Indian cookbook, then we just get lumped into the same pile. They probably wouldn't flinch if it was, oh, we have a Southern Italian cookbook coming out and a Northern Italian cookbook coming out.

• 14:53Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Most likely. And, I mean, I grew up, I'm a lifelong vegetarian, and I cook food that's not Indian, of course, in my house. But I feel like it will be a hard sell for me to write a general vegetarian cookbook or to sell that through versus selling through an Indian cookbook, even though I'm an American.

• 15:16Dan Pashman?

  What about you, Nicole? What were some of the challenges you faced in trying to get your book published?

• 15:20Speaker 01

  So I get the book proposal. We have the book proposal and we send it out. And the first thing people say is, "Well, is this a soul food book?" I felt like at first I was being put into a category. And I almost was at the point of like, "Okay, I'm cool with this. I'm cool with changing my entire book." And then luckily, I just kind of stayed in there. And I'm sure my agent probably was like, "Oh, my gosh. Here, this girl keeps talking about race." But it's true. I mean, people are thinking about that.

• 15:54Dan Pashman?

  So let's talk a bit about the way both of your guys' work is marketed. One of the things that I learned in my experience that I think does to some degree dovetail with what you guys are saying, not to suggest that I've had the same experience, but marketing people who are, to a point, doing their jobs, which is just to try to sell as many of these things as possible, they're always going to try to simplify things and make them feel familiar and similar to other things that consumers can easily recognize. And I get that there are downsides to that. But I think that some of that happens independent of race and ethnicity and culture. Is that fair to say, Chitra?

• 16:30Speaker 03

  I would think so. I mean, I feel like I've had a lot of friends who have written cookbooks. Their subject matter may be, you know, less culturally driven, but they still run into that same issue.

• 16:45Dan Pashman?

  And they're very risk averse. You know, like, they want to buy something that's like 50% the same as something that's sold. Nicole, you seemed a little more skeptical about the idea that when marketers try to simplify some of your work, that it's sort of the necessity of marketing.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  I totally agree with what you're saying. I think that the race factor is another layer to them, another line, another something that they're thinking about. The marketing team is sitting there thinking, "Who's going to buy her book? Is this a black book?"

• 17:44Dan Pashman?

  That's Nicole Taylor. She's the author of The Up South Cookbook: Chasing Dixie in a Brooklyn Kitchen. It's not a black or a white book. It's just a delicious book. And yes, it does have the fried chicken recipe that Nicole mentioned with the coconut milk. It also has her recipe for a chaat masala popcorn. So if you can't put this book in a box, people, just get it. It's called The Up South Cookbook. We also heard today from Chitra Agrawal. Her food blog is the ABCDs of Cooking. She also has her own line of condiments. She makes artisanal achar. Achar is basically like an Indian relish. She makes roasted garlic achar, rhubarb ginger achar, and the one that I am currently in love with, tomato achar. It's spicy and salty and sweet and tangy.

• 18:25Dan Pashman?

  I've been spreading it on sandwiches, dabbing it on eggs. I mean, you can put it on anything. And they ship nationwide, people. Get some at brooklindeli.com. That's deli, D-E-L-H-I. My thanks as well to Professor Krishnendu Ray, who you heard from in this episode. He's the Chair of the NYU Food Studies Department. His new book is called The Ethnic Restaurateur.

• 18:50Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, my conversation with actress Rosie Perez. That's after the break. Stick around.

• 18:59Speaker 04

  It's time to open up a can of advertisements.

• 19:06Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean, whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider.

• 19:40Dan Pashman?

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• 20:22Dan Pashman?

  From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.

• 20:41Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to A Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. Hey, if you're not already following The Sporkful in your podcasting app, what are you waiting for? In Apple Podcasts and Spotify, go to our show page and click Follow. In other apps, it might be like a plus sign, or a subscribe button, or a heart. Whatever it is in your podcasting app, please do that thing. It's the best way to ensure you'll never miss an episode, and it's good for our show. So please, go ahead and do it right now while you're listening. Thank you. Let's turn now to my conversation with Rosie Perez. This was recorded live at WNYC's Green Space in New York City. This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman, and we're coming to you from the Jerome L. Green Performance Space in New York City.

• 21:41Dan Pashman?

  This is part four of our series "Other People's Food", our look at the intersections of food and race and culture. All right, joining me now, it took me like an hour today just to figure out how to narrow down my first guest's introduction, because it could have gone on for pages. From Soul Train to "Do the Right Thing", from "White Men Can't Jump" to "Fearless", "Lacawanna Blues Pineapple Express", "Lies in Plain Sight", "Nurse Jackie", and even "Dora the Explorer". She's been nominated for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award. Her autobiography is "Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother and Still Came Out Smiling with Great Hair". Please welcome the one and only Rosie Perez.

• 22:44Dan Pashman?

  All right. Was that supposed to wait till you sit down before I sit down?

• 22:47Speaker 05

  Oh, it doesn't matter.

• 22:49Dan Pashman?

  You've done more talk shows than I have.

• 22:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:52Dan Pashman?

  I feel like usually the...

• 22:55Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, we'll leave it at that. Well, first of all, Rosie, I want to thank you for being here. You guys should know Rosie has been up since 5 o'clock in the morning. She's at a 12-hour TV shoot and still managed to come here to be with us tonight. So, thank you, Rosie.

• 23:11Dan Pashman?

  So, what have you been eating lately?

• 23:13Speaker 05

  Oh, my God. What have I not been eating lately is the question. Actually, I'm under the weather right now. I have a little bit of cold. So, I have been eating, one of my cold remedies from my aunt Anna that you've read in the book, is garlic soup.

• 23:30Dan Pashman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 05

  Oh, he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's nasty as hell, but you know..."

• 23:36Speaker 05

  You know, but if you drop an egg in it, it makes it a little bit more tasty.

• 23:39Dan Pashman?

  That's so interesting, because my wife's family is from Slovakia, and they're all about garlic soup with an egg in it, too.

• 23:43Speaker 05

  Really?

• 23:44Dan Pashman?

  In Czechoslovakia.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Who knew?

• 23:46Dan Pashman?

  I know. How do you do it?

• 23:49Speaker 05

  How do I do it?

• 23:50Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, yeah, tell me about it.

• 23:51Speaker 05

  What do you mean, "How do I do it"? You put freaking garlic in chicken broth, and then you drop an egg in it.

• 23:56Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 23:57Speaker 05

  You know, and, no, uh, really, I mean, that's, that's basically it, but you put like a mess of garlic, and the best, best way to do it is, um, you put a couple of whole garlics in it, but you also, um, try to crush as many garlics as possible, pieces of garlics in there, too, and, and, um, just let it simmer, don't let it boil, just let it simmer, so all the oil comes out of the garlic, and, and you have all the right stuff that can go into your body. But, you know, I, I am Puerto Rican, I don't know if you've noticed that.

• 24:26Speaker 05

  Uh, so, I, you know, but I, I, I still, people, you know, it's so insulting when people go, "Do you still eat rice and beans"? And I go, "Are you still an idiot"? You know? Yes, I still eat rice and beans, so, um, yes, I still eat a lot of Puerto Rican food, but I like all kinds of food.

• 24:42Dan Pashman?

  Can I ask you, why exactly is that insulting to you?

• 24:48Speaker 05

  Because they wouldn't ask an American, you know, "Do you still eat meat and potatoes"? You know, it's, it's just, "Why would you ask me that"? You know, it's, it's just, it's, you know, it's like, is that what you, you see, you don't see me as a human being first. You see me as rice and beans first. And so therefore, that's why it's insulting. Um, you know, and, and, and it doesn't take away my pride for my culture at all, um, you know, but it's just, it's just an asinine question. And, and I get asked a lot of asinine questions, um, unfortunately, when it comes to my nationality. You know what I mean? What nationality are you?

• 25:26Dan Pashman?

  Uh, Jewish, I guess, an ethnic group, yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 05

  Well, wouldn't it be insulting if I said, "Did you have gefilte fish today"?

• 25:34Dan Pashman?

  To be honest, I don't know.

• 25:37Speaker 05

  Okay, if you were asked if you had gefeltefitch every single day by someone you never met before, you would get tired of it?

• 25:44Dan Pashman?

  Yes.

• 25:45Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 25:45Dan Pashman?

  I would definitely get tired, and I agree, I would certainly think it was a dumb question to ask.

• 25:50Speaker 05

  Right.

• 25:50Dan Pashman?

  But what's interesting, this is one of the things, I'm glad you brought this up because this is something we've sort of been exploring in different ways in the series, is if someone did that to me, or someone came up to me with like, "Oh, what, you're Jewish? Do you eat bagels all day? Or bagels and lox?" Like, I would be like, "No, I live in America, I eat all different kinds of things."

• 26:04Speaker 05

  By the way, do you know who H&H Bagels are? You know H&H, the famous H&H Bagels? It is freaking Hernandez and Hernandez.

• 26:12Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 26:13Speaker 05

  I swear to goodness, I swear, I swear. Holler to all the Latin people out there, you know? But seriously, it's Hernandez and Hernandez. But they knew if they put Hernandez and Hernandez Bagels, no one would buy them.

• 26:27Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 26:27Speaker 05

  Because they know people are freaking racist. But if it's H&H, they're like, "Oh."

• 26:32Dan Pashman?

  But would you go to eat at Goldberg's Puerto Rican restaurant?

• 26:35Speaker 05

  Yes, I would, because I'm from Brooklyn.

• 26:42Speaker 05

  Chino Latino, baby. Everybody crossed in that island, I mean, everybody did, so you know what I mean?

• 26:48Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 26:48Speaker 05

  You know, only if they could cook it well, and they respected the culture, and they knew how to do it right, I would go in there. If they didn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't.

• 26:56Dan Pashman?

  I guess what I'm sort of trying to get at, and I don't know, I don't, this is the thing I'm trying to wrap my brain around, and maybe you can help me, is like, the sensitivity around that issue of sort of being put into a box based on your, anyone's race or ethnicity, and their, people making stupid assumptions or asking dumb questions about the food that you eat, it's like, I can honestly say that like, while if someone asked me that question, those types of questions, I would not be offended. I mean, I think it's dumb, or a little ignorant, but I wouldn't be offended, and I don't know, is that just me, or is there some other reason, some other difference?

• 27:34Speaker 05

  I think it's because maybe you're not of color, and I think that there's a difference. You know what I mean? There's a difference in there, because it's an assumption that you have never ventured out and haven't eaten outside of your culture. That you're limited, you know, in the ways of the world. And so that's, so it has a lot of negative connotations to it. So I think that that's, so it's a little different. Do you understand what I'm saying?

• 28:01Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:02Dan Pashman?

  That makes a lot of sense.

• 28:03Speaker 05

  And, and so, you know, and especially asking a Puerto Rican from New York. I mean, it's like, come on, you turn every corner, there's a different type of food that's offered to you. You know, if they assumed that I had never eaten caviar when I was younger, then I would get it. I wouldn't be insulted. Yeah, well, I'm from Bushwick. No, I haven't eaten caviar. You know?

• 28:31Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, my conversation with Rosie Perez continues. She'll talk about the dual existence that was her childhood, where she went back and forth between her aunt's very Puerto Rican home in Brooklyn and an abusive Catholic convent.

• 28:44Speaker 05

  The nuns tried to beat the Spanish language out of me, out of most of them, you know? And I remember there was a joke, a terrible joke. I said, oh, my God, I got punished forever for it. Because she was like, I said, why do we always have to speak English? She goes, because it's the, it's the language that's in the Bible. I go, Jesus isn't bilingual. I'm confused. How the hell is everyone else gonna understand them? Smack, smack, smack.

• 29:11Dan Pashman?

  Plus, she'll talk about connecting with her roots through food on her first trip to Puerto Rico as a child. Stay with us.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Hope you're hungry because it's time for some ads.

• 29:32Dan Pashman?

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• 30:15Dan Pashman?

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• 30:59Dan Pashman?

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• 31:32Dan Pashman?

  Now, back to my conversation with Rosie Perez.

• 31:36Dan Pashman?

  Rosie's parents were never married. In fact, they had split up by the time she was born. She spent the first three years of her life living with her aunt in Brooklyn, although she thought her aunt was her mother. Her birth mother suffered from mental illness. And when Rosie was three, her birth mother came back into the picture and had Rosie sent to live in a Catholic convent in upstate New York that Rosie called the home. And Rosie spent almost 10 years shuttling back and forth between the nuns, upstate, and her aunt back in Brooklyn, where she spent her summers and holidays and some weekends. It was a split existence. Rosie says her aunt's home was very loving, very Puerto Rican. But in the convent, the nuns tried to force every ounce of Puerto Rican culture out of her.

• 32:21Dan Pashman?

  It was an abusive place.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  The first night, I saw a little girl get beat viciously with a paddle until her little bottom bled because she peed the bed. And when it came for mealtime, I really, I didn't want to eat. And then when I was presented with the food, they put this gray looking slab of whatever in front of me, and it had gray looking gravy on top. And I said, what is that? And they said, that's meat. And I said, meat's not brown, it's white. Because we were so poor, I never had a steak. So I thought that meat was chicken or pork. And they said, eat it. And if you don't eat it, you're going to get, you know, punished and spanked. And I just saw the other girl get beat. And so I tried to eat it.

• 33:07Speaker 05

  And I remember just, I threw up all over the plate. And, and it was, it was really, and, you know, one of the girls was like, you can't throw up, they're going to make you eat your throw up. I go, no, they won't. And they, they used to do that. And even, even to this day, I have like this PTSD kind of reaction to red meat, which is kind of good because it is disgusting anyway. You know, so, you know. But yeah, so it was, it was, it was, it was strange. It was very, very strange existence. And, and, and my salvation was the weekends and the summers and the winter breaks because I got to go home. At that time, we lived in Williamsburg South on Lee Avenue in Walabout.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  And I smelled, you know, penne, which is roasted pork shoulder and the rice and beans. I knew I was home. I knew I was home and, and I would just stuff my face, you know? And I became like a really greedy slob, you know? And I still am a really greedy slob, you know? But, and it was because of that. It's like good, good food and colorful food and, and, and good smelling food and, and hearty food that blessed your tummy and your soul.

• 34:19Dan Pashman?

  Tell me about some of your memories of being in the kitchen with your aunt.

• 34:23Speaker 05

  Oh, that was everything. That was everything. I used to love how she would pull a chair up to the stove and let me wash the rice. I loved that and I would watch her cook and I learned every little thing and even as I got older, I did not know how to use any type of measuring tools because she would use her hands to measure everything. And she would say, "You see the first line in the middle of your hand?" I go, "Yeah." She goes, "The second line, that's a teaspoon." Like, "That's just that much. And if it goes over here by where it hits your finger, that's a tablespoon." And, you know, because if she was like, "How much you say?" "A teaspoon." "Okay, like that." "There." "Okay, put it in."

• 35:08Speaker 05

  And, you know, and it was our special time, just laughing and talking endlessly of hours of just cooking, and especially on the weekends. And that's why I'm a fabulous cook now because I was never instructed. It was just part of the conversation of how I learned how to cook. And I think that's a beautiful thing and I think that art of learning to cook through family and conversation is lost. It's lost. It's like a lost art. You know, it's just, it's a loss.

• 35:46Speaker 05

  I don't know what other word I can say but "love." It's a loss of love, you know? Because that's what makes food good, is when you put the love into it and you put the time into it and you put the experience and then there's a story, you know, to the meal.

• 36:02Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 36:04Dan Pashman?

  That's well said.

• 36:08Dan Pashman?

  Tell me about your first trip to Puerto Rico.

• 36:11Speaker 05

  My first trip to Puerto Rico was very, very bittersweet because I was just kind of... Nervous that my father was going to treat me differently. Because my sister and brother, and they had, from his wife, were down there.

• 36:33Dan Pashman?

  This was, I'm sorry to interrupt, but just so everyone, so this was your birth father?

• 36:36Speaker 05

  My birth father.

• 36:37Dan Pashman?

  You were going down to Puerto Rico to be with him?

• 36:39Speaker 05

  Every summer, yeah.

• 36:39Dan Pashman?

  And how old were you the first time you went?

• 36:42Speaker 05

  I was very, very young.

• 36:43Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 36:43Speaker 05

  I was still in preschool, in elementary school.

• 36:45Dan Pashman?

  Six, seven?

• 36:46Speaker 05

  Six, seven years old, and um...

• 36:48Dan Pashman?

  So, and he was now with his wife at the time, and he had his own kids down there?

• 36:52Speaker 05

  The wife that he had before, he met my mother.

• 36:54Dan Pashman?

  Well, okay.

• 36:54Speaker 05

  Gambales.

• 36:58Speaker 05

  That's why you see all this fire.

• 37:05Speaker 05

  I'm sorry, what were you saying?

• 37:08Dan Pashman?

  Right, yes, so, so it was bittersweet and you were nervous?

• 37:12Speaker 05

  You turned red.

• 37:14Dan Pashman?

  I'm blushing, Rosie.

• 37:16Speaker 05

  Yes, I was nervous, because you know, you're like, oh, you know, they have my father all the time. I only have my father doing visits. My first time there, I was very, very nervous. And I remember my stepmother making me so upset, because she was making arroz y candules, that's um, rice with piggies. And, and she was making patel. It's uh, it's like, um, I can't describe it. The closest thing is maybe like to a tamale, but that is not really, it's not made with cornmeal, but made with green plantains. And she made me, um, she made me a hamburger, french fries. And I remember I got so angry at her, I got so mad at her. They were treating me like if I was American.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  And that was so, that hurt me. I mean, it hurt me, and I, I didn't know how to handle it. And I was, I was, I was a terrible brat about it. I was so mean to her. But, you know, I remember, it was during the holidays, and we went into the town square. All the families in Aguadilla had tables lined up and on the perimeters, and everyone brought their special dish. To be presented as a community. And I ate so much, my stomach was so big. And my aunt was like, "I please, you look like a little pig, you're gonna throw up." And I was like, "No, I'm not, not this time, I am not throwing up anything." And I ate and ate and I remember kept saying, "What's this and what's that and what's this and what's that?"

• 38:46Speaker 05

  And I wanted to know everything. And it was really special to me because I felt that I belonged. I felt like an alien inside the convent, which we called the home. But when I went to Puerto Rico, I was like, "This is me. This is me." All the tastes are familiar, the smells are familiar. And even the new foods that I was taking in just felt right to me. And I felt a part of things, you know? And when I went to my tia Ayah's house up in the hills, you know,

• 39:29Speaker 05

  helping her smash the garlic. I remember as a little girl, I just started crying and she just smiled at me. And she goes, "This is who you are, Rosita. You don't have to cry." And I was like, "Oh, I should have put that in my book. Did I put that in there? Did I put that in there?"

• 39:51Dan Pashman?

  Well, this will be the second book. You definitely talked about the hamburger and fries in the book.

• 39:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, even though I'm the first person born here in America, I'm Puerto Rican first. I'm a Puerto Rican American. And even as a little girl, I understood that.

• 40:06Dan Pashman?

  Is there something that you cook today that especially makes you think of your aunt that you lived with in Brooklyn?

• 40:13Speaker 05

  That's a very good question. Every single Puerto Rican dish I cook makes me think of her. And I talk about her every time I cook. And you can ask my husband and, you know, my cousin's six-year-old, when he comes over, he's irritating, but I love him, you know? And, you know, but when he comes over, I always cook for him too. That's how I say to you, I know this sounds weird, but if I cook for you, it means that I like you. So if you come over my house, I'm gonna be respectful and offer you a cup of coffee or water. And if I really don't like you, I go, "All right."

• 40:55Speaker 05

  You're good, you know? But if I really love you and I really care about you, or if I really want to get to know you, before you walk in that door, I already have a meal waiting for you. And my aunt taught me that, too.

• 41:09Dan Pashman?

  Well, Rosie, it means so much to us that you came here after a long day, and it's been so great to have you here to share some of your stories. Rosie's autobiography is called Handbook for an Unpredictable Life. Rosie's autobiography is called Handbook for an Unpredict... Rosie's autobiography is called...

• 41:29Speaker 05

  Shut up! Let him get him out! Oh, my God!

• 41:32Dan Pashman?

  Now we're gonna have to leave this whole part in.

• 41:33Speaker 05

  You know? Save the laughter and applause when I leave, like, I was fabulous!

• 41:38Dan Pashman?

  That's right, that's right. Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother and Still Came Out Smiling with Great Hair. Let's have a big hand for Rosie Perez!

• 41:47Speaker 05

  Thank you!

• 42:13Dan Pashman?

  This show is a production of WNYC Studios in the Spork Vault. It's produced by Ann Sannion and me. Special thanks to Paula Schuman. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 42:21Speaker 06

  I'm Shalita from Walkill, New York, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 42:49Dan Pashman?

  Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer. Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer. Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is. Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 43:40Speaker 06

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