Courtesy of Friends of Oldways

Over the years we’ve been asked about many of the different fruits, vegetables, legumes, tubers and nuts on the Oldways Latin American Diet Pyramid, so we thought it would be useful to have a few descriptions of them to accompany this Pyramid, and also the EatWise/Latin Pyramid.

The following list is not exhaustive, but we think it illustrates the wide range of wonderful ingredients that make Latin American cooking so flavorful, so interesting and so delicious. You can browse the entire list, or click on a name in the index table, to go directly to that food.

Beans and Nuts

The flowering almonds (e.g., P. triloba) are pink- to white-blossomed shrubs also native to central Asia; like the similar and closely related pink-blossomed almond, they are widely cultivated as ornamentals.  Several Asian types are known as myrobalan, a name applied also to the cherry plum, with which flowering almonds are sometimes hybridized.  The beauty of the almond in bud, blossom, and fruit gave motif to sacred and ornamental carving.  In the Middle East the tree breaks into sudden bloom in January, and in some of the region it has come to symbolize beauty and revival.  The rod of Aaron in the Bible bore almonds.  Almonds are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Rosales, family Rosaceae.

www.encyclopedia.com/html/M/Magnolio.asp
Encyclopedia.com 

Beans (legumes)
Black (turtle), red kidney, pink, mottled pinto, white Navy, or pea beans, all belong to the large grouping called Phaseolus vulgaris of the legume family, which originated in Mexico about 5000 B.C.  They are an essential part of the Latin American kitchen and turn up in many guises.  I follow the Mexican rules for cooking beans — namely, that they should not be soaked but should be put on to cook in cold water with their seasonings and that hot water is added as necessary during the cooking time.  Salt should not be added until the beans are tender.  It is impossible to give an exact time for cooking beans as it can vary from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours according to the age of the beans.

It is wise to buy beans from shops with a quick turnover, as stale beans may take a very long time to cook and even when cooked may have a dry texture.  If there is reason to suspect that beans are stale, a desperate remedy may be in order.  Soak them overnight in cold water with a little bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), 1/4 teaspoon to 2 cups of beans, then rinse the beans very thoroughly before putting them on to cook in fresh water.  It works wonders.

The Spanish and Portuguese brought chickpeas, sometimes called garbanzos or ceci (Cicer arietinum), also of the legume family, to the New World with them.  These hard, round, yellow peas, native to the Middle East, do need soaking overnight in cold water before cooking.  Another popular bean from the Middle East is the broad bean, also called fava or habas (Vicia faba).  Other popular local beans are limas from Peru and cranberry or shell beans and, to a lesser extent, black-eyed peas, which originated in Africa. 

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969

A Peruvian native cultivated by the Incas, and possibly also a native of Equatorial Africa, the peanut is one of the world's major foodstuffs.  It is not a true nut but a legume, a member of the pea-family — hence its English name.

The peanut's growing-habit is equally interesting: the blossoms appear in the usual way, but the flower-stalks thrust themselves into the ground as soon as the pod begins to develop, ensuring that the seeds — peanuts — are already planted in the earth by the time they mature.

The skin which covers the nut can be any colour from pale cream to a reddish brown or even piebald.  An oil-nut as well as an eating-nut, the flavour is starchy and beany when raw, developing its delicious nuttiness only when roasted.

To roast peanuts, shell them, spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast them at 170°C/325°F/gas mark 3 for 15-20 minutes; to skin them, shake them vigorously in a sieve while blowing off the papery residue, or rub them with a clean cloth.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Grains and Tubers

Amaranth
Amaranth was a staple of Aztec culture, until Cortez, in an effort to destroy that civilization, decreed that anyone growing the crop would be put to death.  Seeds were smuggled out to Asia, where local dialects referred to it as "king seed" and "seed sent by God" as a tribute to its taste and sustenance.  Amaranth kernels are tiny; when cooked they resemble brown caviar.

Today amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) is making its way back, thanks to a lively, peppery taste and a higher level of protein (16%) than most other grains.  In South America, it is often sold on the streets, popped like corn.  Amaranth has no gluten, so it must be mixed with wheat to make leavened breads.  It is popular in cereals, breads, muffins, crackers and pancakes.

Health bonus: Amaranth has a high level of very complete protein; its protein contains lysine, an amino acid missing or negligible in many grains.

 © Oldways Whole Grains Go Mainstream Conference Book, 2004

Cassava, Manioc and Yuca
Also called mandioca, aipín, or yuca, these are handsome tropical plants whose tuberous roots, at least 2 inches in diameter and about 8 to 10 inches long, are best known as the commercial source of tapioca.

In Brazil manioc meal is used to make farofa: the meal is toasted and mixed with butter and other ingredients such as onion, eggs, or prunes and served with Feijoada or with poultry, steaks, or roasted meats.  Farofa, which looks like coarsely grated Parmesan cheese, is as common on Brazilian tables as salt and pepper.

Cassava is also used for making bread or cakes, mostly sold commercially in South America.  To make them, you need cassava that is finely ground like cornstarch, not easily obtainable in the United States — and, anyway, the results are not particularly delicious.

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969

So popular is this starchy tuber [yuca] among Latin Americans, there's a restaurant in Miami named Yuca.  Picture a slender, elongated root vegetable with tapered ends, ranging from 4 inches to well over 2 feet in length.  The skin is a sort of smooth, brownish bark; the flesh is as white as bone; the flavor is bland, but exquisitely buttery.

You may be more familiar with it than you think.  Yuca is the root used to make tapioca.  Yuca is also made into flour, which is used in a variety of Caribbean and Brazilian dishes.  Boiled Yuca con mojo is one of Cuba's national dishes.  There's almost no end to the uses for yuca.  To prepare the root, cut it crosswise into 2-inch rounds and pare off the barklike skin and pink layer underneath.  Remove the fibrous cord in the center either before or after cooking.  Like other Latin American root vegetables, yuca should be served at once; it becomes starchy and heavy when it sits for too long.

© Steven Raichlen’s Healthy Latin Cooking, Rodale Press, 1998 

Maize is the pre-eminent grain-crop of the Americas; pre-historic middens leave ethnobotanists in no doubt that it has been cultivated throughout the Americas for at least 7,000 years.  Creation legends of both the Andean nations and the peoples of Central America present maize-corn as the raw material of life, much as Ancient Europeans attached mystical significance to wheat.  The cob appears in depictions of elaborate ritual dishes; in Mexico, the Aztecs of Cortes’ day planted the crop up and down their highways, so that no one might go hungry — generosity wasted on the conquistadors, who lost many of their number to starvation.

Although of most practical use as a store cupboard grain, valued for both man and his domestic animals, the tender young cobs are eaten fresh (tierno) in season.  In tropical lands, where summer and winter are largely irrelevant, this can be three or even four times a year.

Many different varieties are grown, though two main strains can be identified: the sunny yellow sweetcorn of Central America, and the larger, whiter, starchier corn of the Andean highlands.  Maiz morado, a purple corn native to Peru, is the caviar of the crop, very sought after for its delicate lemon-blossomy flavor.

Choose cobs still in their bright green jackets — there should be no sign of drying or yellowing — and resist the temptation to open them even a crack: exposure to air begins the hardening and drying process.  The shorter the distance from field to pot the better.  After only a few hours, the sugar in the kernels begins to turn to starch.

When the corn is perfectly fresh and tender at the beginning of the season, steam or grill and eat straight from the hand.  Later, scrape off the kernels to make a creamy soup, or include the kernels in one of the myriad multicolored stews, or cut into thick slices and serve with a seviche or a soup instead of bread.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Masa Harina
Also known as tortilla flour, masarepa, arepa flour.

Masa harina and masarepa are prepared flours made from lye-treated, pre-cooked, milled corn, the raw material of tortillas and arepas, the daily bread of the southern Americas.  Both are griddle-baked flatbreads of varying thickness which serve the same purpose as all other flatbreads, as food-wrapper, portable plate, spoon, fork and edible scoop.  Table implements are kept to the minimum in the heat of the tropics for practical reasons of hygiene.

To prepare your own masa for both tortillas and arepas, you’ll need dried corn-kernels stripped from the cob.  Soak them in fresh water overnight with a pinch of lye, drain them, grind them to a soft mush by whatever means available, and knead with a little salt to make a smooth, soft dough.

Masa harina, tortilla flour, is yellow and a little specked (variations in color are admired in a maize-cob), while masarepa, arepa flour, is prepared from the whiter, starchier corn of the Andes.  The flavor of the first is stronger and sweeter than the second, but both are satisfyingly nutty with a honeyed aftertaste.

When the basic prepared four is mixed with a little more than half its own volume of warm water, with or without enriching fat, it can be worked into a dough.  This can be baked in the form of a flatbread, or used as an enclosing pastry for empanadillas, little pasties.  Prepared harina is also the raw material for tamales.  In its most digestible form, it can be taken as atole, either broth-based gruel, or made with milk, sweetened and favored with cinnamon — drunk hot or chilled.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

The basic ingredient of Italian-style pasta is semolina, a durum wheat flour, which is moistened with water, kneaded to a smooth dough, and rolled out and cut or formed into various shapes, such as ribbons, tubes, or disks; they may be twisted or ribbed.  Thin strands are known as spaghetti (Italian for “little strings”) and very thin as vermicelli (“little worms”).

Pasta may contain eggs as well as such flavoring and coloring agents as tomatoes, spinach, and squid ink.  In Asia, noodles are a common staple, as in Japan's soba (buckwheat noodles served with a soy dipping sauce), Korea's chilled beef and noodle soup, and China's lo mein (stir-fried wheat noodles paired with a variety of other ingredients) and chow fun (rice noodles).  Many other countries have created their own pasta dishes.

In Mexico and other parts of Latin America, pasta is often used in soups. 

M. L. and J. D. Scott: The Complete Pasta Book (1988);
S. Serventi and F. Sabban, Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food (tr. 2003).
Encyclopedia.com

The plant is probably native to the Andes, where it was cultivated by the Incas.  In pre-Columbian times its culture spread widely among Native Americans, for whom it was a staple food.  Spanish explorers are believed to have brought it in the 16th cent. from Peru to Spain, whence it spread N and W throughout Europe.  It was brought to North America by European settlers probably c.1600; thus, like the closely related tomato, it is a reintroduced food plant in the New World.

The potato was first accepted as a large-scale crop in the British Isles.  It became the major food in Ireland during the 18th century and is hence often called Irish potato to distinguish it from the sweet potato.  Ireland was so dependent on the potato that the failure (resulting from blight) of the 1845-46 crop caused a famine resulting in widespread disease, death, and emigration.

The potato was also important to the course of history in the 20th cent. in Europe, especially in Germany, where it kept the country alive during two world wars.  With its high carbohydrate content, the potato is today a primary food of Western peoples, as well as a source of starch, flour, alcohol, dextrin, and fodder (chiefly in Europe, where more is used for this purpose than for human consumption).  It grows best in a cool, moist climate.

www.encyclopedia.com/html/n1/nightsha.asp
Encyclopedia.com

Quinoa
Quinoa (Chenopodium spp.) is a member of the spinach family, whose leaves are eaten in much the same way.  It is widespread through the world in various forms, happiest in the harshest conditions such as those of the Andean highland, and was known to the Incas as the mother-seed, the source of all life.  As such it was one of the two grain foods — the other the Aztec’s amaranth — targeted as unacceptable by the Hispanic colonizers for religious as well as political reasons.

It survived as a staple grain-food only among the people of Bolivia’s Altiplano, particularly in the Cordillera mountains where it thrives at altitudes above three thousand metres.  Quinoa has recently started to come back into favor thanks to its value in a vegetarian diet.

Quinoa is a leafy member of the spinach family which comes in many colors — pink, red, orange, lavender, purple, black, yellow and white — and grows to a height of one to three metres, carrying its seed-heads in large clusters at the end of the stalk.  Prolific and hardy, it thrives in extreme conditions.  Quinoa is harvested mainly for its seed, though its leaves are indistinguishable from spinach.

Quinoa cooks and tastes like a nutty couscous — the grains swell up to four times their own volume — speckled with little crescent-shaped corkscrews, the debris of the outer coverings.  It is sometimes known as the vegetarian caviar for the crunchiness and translucence of the small perfectly spherical grains which never lose their shine.

Quinoa is a versatile cereal, as useful to the pastry-chef looking for a way to lighten his cakes and biscuits as to the domestic cook feeding a family on a budget.  As a cereal, treat it as bulgar-wheat: cook it in twice its own volume of water and serve either as a porridge, delicious sweetened with honey and cream, or as a pilaf, flavored with fresh herbs.  In Ecuador, quinoa is traditionally combined with lye-treated cornmeal when kneading tamales and tortillas.

In cakes and pastries, use it either as a cooked grain or in the form of flour, bearing in mind that quinoa, although its lightness makes it suitable for the finest pastry-making, lacks the gluten necessary to hold a dough together.  For best results, mix it with wheat flour in the proportions of 4 parts wheat to 3 parts quinoa, and grind in the food-processor to make a delicate, exquisitely hazelnut-flavored flour.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Rice
Rice is enormously popular in Latin America and cooks pride themselves on their ability to cook rice to perfection, as this is often considered the measure of their skill in the kitchen.  There are many ways to cook plain white rice and all of them produce rice that emerges tender, and with every grain separate.

In Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador, cooked rice is drier than ours and is called Arroz Graneado, which has a dual meaning in Peruvian Spanish — choice or select, and grainy.  It is an attractive texture.  There are also more elaborate rice dishes like Arroz a la Mexicana (Rice, Mexican Style), which is served as a separate course, sopa seca, or dry soup, at comida, the big midday meal.  It comes after soup and before the main course.

I serve it with the main course as our meals are not as elaborate as they are traditionally in Mexico.  In coastal Colombia rice is cooked in coconut milk and garnished with raisins, giving it a tantalizing hint of sweetness.  In addition to plain white rice and more elaborate rice dishes, Brazil makes rice into molded puddings that are served with the traditional dishes of Bahia.  It is important always to use a heavy saucepan with a tightly fitting lid.  If  the rice is not to be used immediately, cover the saucepan with a folded dish towel, then the lid to prevent condensed moisture from making the rice mushy.  The rice will stay hot for about 15 minutes.

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969

Sweet potato
The sweet potato is an edible tuber originally from tropical America, though its precise birthplace is not known.  Only slightly sweet, it is in no way related to the potato family.  The most popular variety grown in the United States is the Louisiana yam, with moist, orange-colored flesh and brown skin.

Its name is also confusing as it is not related to the yams, which are an entirely different botanical group, the Dioscoreas.  The white sweet potato with drier white flesh and pink or white skin is known as boniato (pronounced bon-ee-AH-toe) and is the variety most popular in Latin America.  It is widely available in tropical markets and increasingly in ordinary greengrocers.  It makes a delicious substitute for potatoes.  Scientific name is (Ipomoea batatas).

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969

Taro and malanga
Taro and malanga are tropical plants that bear edible tubers and are members of the very large Arum family.  There are a great many of them and they have been cultivated for more than 2,000 years.  I think of all the root vegetables they are, apart from potatoes, the most subtly flavored, the most delicious.  The type of taro most widely cultivated in the United States is called dasheen and can be found in tropical markets, though in some markets specializing in Caribbean foods it may be called coco or eddo.  They can also be found in Japanese markets as sato-imo, or Japanese potatoes.

A closely related group, the malangas, which belong to the genus Xanthosoma, are known by a wide variety of names, malanga, tannia, and yautía being the ones most likely to be encountered in tropical markets in the U.S.  The skins are usually brown, the flesh white to yellow, and they can be cooked like potatoes.  When I first went looking for them in markets, I wrote down all the names and asked for them in a sort of litany.  I found people very understanding and helpful, and they sorted things out for me in a charmingly good-humored way.

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969

The Spaniards named them antojitos, little whims or fancies, and to me they are perhaps the most exciting aspects of pre-Columbian Mexican cooking.  We have some very good descriptions of the markets of old Tenochitilán, now modern Mexico City, before the Conquest was completed, when the city was virtually untouched by the invaders.  In his Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España Fray Bernardino de Sharagún, a Spanish priest, tells, among other things, of the types of tortilla on sale in the market; it is enough to make one’s head spin — with envy.

That marvelous early war correspondent, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a captain who was with Cortés before and during the campaign, gives in his memoirs, Historia de la Conquista de Nueva España, a remarkable picture of dining in Mexico, so we do know that there was a great deal more, now also lost, of this cuisine.  However, loss was soon balanced by gain, as post-Conquest Mexicans made good use of the foods the Spanish brought from Europe and Asia, and their antojitos were enhanced by beef, pork, chicken, olives, almonds, raisins, and so on.

With the exception of arepas, the corn bread of Venezuela, tortillas are unique among breads in being made from a cooked, not a raw, flour.  Dried corn is boiled with lime until the skins are loosened and the cooked, skinned kernels are then dried and ground to make the masa harina, dough flour, that is used for tortillas.  The flour is mixed with water to a fairly soft dough, pressed on a tortilla press or patted into a flat pancake by hand, and baked on a comal, an ungreased griddle, for a minute or so.  It is not possible to speak of a raw tortilla, only of an unbaked one.  Tortillas for those who don’t want to make them are widely are available in markets.

Arepas are also made from a cooked flour, and since it was in the Valley of Mexico in 5000 B.C. that corn was first cultivated, not arriving in South America until about 1500 B.C., it is a safe bet that the technique of cooking the corn before making it into flour was established in Mexico long before Venezuela invented arepas.  In any event, they are quite different.

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969 

Avocado
Avocados, members the laurel family, were cultivated in Mexico as far back as 7000 B.C. and was known as ahuacatl in Nahuatl, the language of the ancient Mexicans.  Today it is called aguacate.  It spread to South America before Columbus arrived and was cultivated in the Inca empire, where it was called palta.  Today it is known in Quechua by that name though in many parts of South America it keeps its Mexican name.  In Brazil it is called abacate.  Scientificaly, it is the Persea Americana.

The fruit may be rough or smooth-skinned, green or black.  It is hard when unripe but ripens in a few days if put into a brown paper bag and left at room temperature.  An avocado is ripe when it yields to a gentle pressure at the stem end.  Once an avocado is cut, it discolors quickly.  Sprinkling lime or lemon juice on it helps, and if you are going to try to keep an unused portion of an avocado, leave the skin on, let the pit rest in the cavity, rub the cut sides with lemon or lime, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate.

An easy way to mash avocados is to cut them in half, remove the pits, and mash them in their shells with a fork, holding the shell in the palm of the left hand.  Scoop out the flesh with a spoon and mash any bits that may have escaped the fork.  This method is much easier than having them slither round a bowl and gives a texture with character.  Avocado leaves are sometimes used in Mexican cooking in the same way as bay leaves and there is also the charming bonus of being able to grow the pits into very beautiful house plants.  To toast avocado leaves, place them on an ungreased comal (griddle) or a heavy iron skillet and cook on both sides over moderate heat for about 1 minute.

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969 

Breadfruit
Member of the Moraceae (fig) family, (Artocarpus altilis).  This handsome evergreen tree originated in the South Pacific and is now found throughout the tropics.  Maturing at 15 to 20 meters tall or greater it can produce fruits for 50 years or more.  The massive trunk may attain a 2 to 3 meter girth and depending on the variety; it either slightly flares at the base or forms narrow buttresses.  The luxurious foliage consists of large, glossy dark-green leaves that range from entire to deeply dissected.

Fruits are usually round, oval, or elongate and weigh from 0.25 to 5.5 kg.  The creamy white or pale yellow flesh, when roasted, is said to have the texture and fragrance of fresh baked bread, giving the tree its name.  Breadfruit is usually seedless but there are also many varieties with seeds.

The Fruit: The female inflorescence, appearing after the male, consists of 1500-2000 minute flowers attached to a spongy core or fruit axis.  The flowers fuse together and develop into the fleshy, edible portion of the fruit.  No pollination is required for a fruit to form.  The skin is light green, yellow-green, or yellow when mature although one unusual variety has pinkish or orange-brown fruit.  The thin skin is patterned with hexagonal markings and can be smooth, bumpy, or spiny.  Fruits are typically mature and ready to harvest and eat in 15-19 weeks.  Ripe fruits have a yellow or yellow-brown skin and soft, sweet, creamy flesh that can be eaten raw.

The Breadfruit Institute, Breadfruit.org

Theobroma cacao is a lower-canopy tree indigenous to equatorial America, whose pods, born on the main trunk rather than the extremities, vary in colour as they mature from ochre to red.  Inside are rows of pale beans, much like corncobs embedded in soft white fluff.  The harvesters split the pods and heap them under damp leaves to ferment, a natural process which develops the flavour as well as inhibiting sprouting.  The beans are then exported to the manufacturing country, where the raw materials undergo their metamorphosis into chocolate bars and cocoa powder.

Cocoa is bitter tasting in its raw form and, like coffee, must be fermented and roasted.  In the civilizations of the Maya and the Aztecs, beans were prepared in much the same way as they are today: dried in the sun and fermented in their pods, then ground over a fire to a powder and formed into pellets for storage. In this form, the taste is bitter and must be balanced by the sweetness of honey, a thickening of sweet cornmeal and a flavouring of vanilla or chilli or both.  This aromatic blend was then stirred into boiling water and beaten until foamy.

Today, the cocoa butter is heat-extracted and the shells are ground to produce plain cocoa or, alternatively, extra cocoa butter and sweeteners are added to the ground shells to make a solid chocolate block.  Cocoa is best used in its unsweetened form in savoury dishes, although high-quality bitter chocolate will do well enough.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Cherimoya (custard apple)
The cherimoya is the fruit of a tree native to Ecuador and Peru.  The Incas gave it its name — “ice-seed” in the Quechua language — either for the snow-white flesh (all the brighter for the contrast with the jet-black seeds), or for its remarkable ability to survive the harsh winters of the Amazonia uplands.

It is also known as custard apple (UK), chirimoya, soursop, anona blanca, graveola (Brazil), guanabana (El Salvador), zapote de viejas (Mexico), pox (Mexico), chirimorrió (Venezuela), and sinini (Bolivia).

The fruits sprout (as do many other jungle-fruits) on stalks from the branches of the tree.

Special and dimpled at the stalk end like an apple, the custard apple is about the size of a grapefruit, though some can be much smaller or considerable larger, weighing up to a kilo.  It is marked more or less obviously with irregularly-spaced facets — fingerprints — which give it the appearance of a large, jade-skinned pinecone.

The flesh when ripe is soft, creamy and deliciously fragrant, with a pineapple/banana/vanilla flavour and enough acidity to stimulate the taste-buds.  The texture is grainy and rather pear-like close to the skin, graduating to fibrous and pineapple-like where it cradles the seeds.  ‘Deliciousness itself,’ declared Mark Twain on tasting the fruit for the first time.

For custard apple purée, halve the fruit, scoop out the pulp and push it thorough a sieve to separate the seeds from the flesh.  To eat raw, cut the fruit in half and eat with a spoon.  If you don’t want to eat it immediately, sprinkle it with lemon juice to stop it browning.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

A smallish tree, about the size of an apple-tree, the guava has large smooth-edged leaves and white flowers from which develop somewhat pear-like fruits.

The fruits are very variable in size and colour with skin which runs the gamut from pale green through yellow to (sometimes) scarlet when ripe.  The flesh varies from creamy-white to bright pink and has an outer and inner section, the inner section being scattered with gritty little seeds in a circular pattern round the core, although some seedless varieties are grown.

The large, pale-fleshed, pear-shaped guavas are considered the best for eating, while the small, pink-fleshed varieties such as the strawberry guava, P cattleianum — a Brazilian native which ripens to a deep purple — make the best jelly.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Mango
The mango, though native to India and the forests of South East Asia, arrived in the tropical Americas during the seventeenth century and has been perfectly at home ever since.

The tree is a handsome evergreen — at first glance, not unlike a narrow-leaved magnolia, with a smooth grey trunk and dark green foliage.  The fruits, green globes, are suspended from the branches on short vegetable ropes, like Christmas baubles, and do not ripen until they drop.  The shape of the fruit is simplicity itself: a smooth-skinned sphere, elongated and slightly flattened, some ending in a little point where the flowerhead was.  Mango groves are found throughout the tropical belt, including Cuba and the Caribbean, though Puerto Rico and Brazil are the main exporters.

When ripe, the skin-colour can be green or yellow or blushed with scarlet, according to its breeding; the flesh ripens from translucent green to a soft yellow, some varieties deepening to a beautiful orange.  The texture of a ripe mango is juicy, buttery and soft, a little fibrous round the hard brown stone, with an apricot/peach/pineapple flavour.  When unripe and green, the stone is white and soft, the skin tender and the flesh much like that of a sharp green apple, refreshing and fragrant.

The fruit is eaten at all stages of ripeness, even when green and hard: the stage when it's particularly high in pectin and can be used to set a jelly.  To remove the stone, just place the fruit on its narrowest edge and slip a knife between the flesh and the stone, following the curve which mirrors the shape of the stone; repeat on the other side, then deal as neatly as you can with the margins.  If the variety is particularly fibrous, roll it in your hand to soften the flesh, make a small hole in the stalk end and squeeze out the pulp.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Papaya
Known as melón zapote (Mexico), fruta bomba (Cuba), lechosa/lichisa (Puerto Rico), mando or mamão (Brazil) and paw-paw — sometimes, but not to be, confused with cherimoya (Carica papaya).

The papaya is a pear-shaped, green-skinned fruit which grows in clusters directly out of the trunk of a small tree native to the sub-tropical lowlands of Central America.  Cultivated since pre-Columbian times by the Mayans and their successors the Aztecs, the common name — papaya — derives from the Mayan name, ababai.

A fruit of variable size in its land of origin, the papaya can be as large as a honeydew melon.  The export trade prefers smaller fruits weighing no more than a pound which can be sold as suitable for a single portion or, at most, for sharing between two people.

When ripe, the flesh is pink, tinged with orange, and is tender and fragrant, with a flavour of strawberry and banana.  Growing in popularity commercially is the chamburo or babaco (C. pentagona), a deeply ridged, five-sided seedless papaya of Ecuadorian origin — a hybrid of a native fruit, unknown in the wild —  which has sweet, juicy, fragrant, vanilla-scented, ivory-white flesh which, lacking the hard little seeds, is edible throughout.

The central cavity is filled with small black seeds slicked with sticky juice in a soft gloop.  These seeds, though very hard, can be cracked and eaten: crushed or milled, they taste a little like grain-mustard and are good in a salad-dressing.  The leaves can be used as a food-wrapper, parting a delicate flavour as well as as a tenderising agent.

Delicious ripe and raw with just a squeeze of lime juice, papayas can be included in meat stews and marinades as a tenderizer.  All parts (fruit and leaves) contain papain, a protein-digesting enzyme used in commercial meat-tenderizing powders.  For this reason, it won't set as a jelly if the setting-agent is gelatine of animal origin.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Plantains
Pllatains (plátanos in Spanish) are members of the same family as bananas and the bird-of-paradise flower (Strelitzia).  They are much larger than bananas and are not edible until cooked even when they are quite ripe and their skins are black.  They are fried or boiled green, half-ripe, and ripe, and are usually served as a starchy vegetable to accompany meat, poultry, or fish.  They also make a good cocktail nibble when green (verde), thinly sliced, and deep fried.

Neither plantains (except very ripe ones) nor green bananas peel readily by hand.  The simplest method is to make shallow lengthwise cuts along the natural ridges of the fruit and pull the skin off in sections.

© Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Book of Latin American Cooking, Vintage Books, 1969

It was introduced to Britain at an early date (first accounts of its cultivation are from 1275) and was commonly grown in the 16th-18th centuries, when it was usually used for making quince marmalade.  Its cultivation reached a peak here in the 18th & 19th centuries, then declined with the increase in popularity of soft fruits.

Fruits are light golden-yellow, green or orange, usually pear shaped (but sometimes round and apple-shaped — sometimes classified as ‘Maliformis’) and very fragrant. The fruit pulp is firm, aromatic and always contains gritty cells. Individual fruits can weight up to half a kilogram (1 lb) or more, and ripen late in the autumn. Fruits contain seeds which are poisonous.

Quinces have long been grown for flavouring apple pies, ices and confections. In warm temperate and tropical regions, the fruits can become soft, juicy, and suitable for eating raw; but in cooler temperate areas like Britain, they do not ripen so far.  Here, raw quince fruits are hard, gritty, harsh and astringent, but after a few weeks of storage the flesh softens and astringency decreases to a point where some people find them edible.

Most people prefer to eat quinces after cooking, though. They are delicious stewed, baked, made into fruit butter etc — almost anything that can be done with apples can be done with quinces, and they need a similar length of cooking as apples; only add sugar after they become soft and start to change colour.  A single slice added to an apple pie is enough to add a subtle flavour.  Quince flesh turns pink when cooked.

Individual fruits can be baked in halves, with the juice becoming a pink syrup in the dish. Other recommendations are to add a few slices to roasting meats or a little cooked quince to casseroles.

Quinces contain high levels of pectin, which ensures that any jelly made with them will set easily.  Quince jelly is a popular recipe.  Quince paste is still widely made in France (cotignac) and Spain (membrilo), while in Argentina and Chile a quince spread (dulce de membrilo) is made.

The quince (Cydonia oblonga) is now the only member of the genus Cydonia; the three shrubby quinces previously included are now classified in Chaenomeles.  Quince has previously been classified as Pyrus cydonia and Cydonia vulgaris.

www.agroforestry.co.uk

Tamarind
Tamarind (tamarindo) is a long, curved, brown tropical seed pod with a fruity sweet-sour pulp.  (Imagine the flavor of prune puree mixed with lime juice and a whiff of wood smoke.)  Tamarind is popular in México and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, where it's used to flavor sauces, candies, and drinks.  If you live in a city with a large Hispanic, Asian, or Indian population, you may be able to find fresh tamarind pods (look for pods with cracked tan-brown skins) or blocks of peeled tamarind pulp with the seeds.

The easiest form to use is tamarind water or tamarind puree (pulpa de tamarindo), a seedless puree made by blending tamarind pulp and water.  Hispanic, Asian, and Indian markets and some supermarkets sell tamarind puree on the shelf or in the freezer section.

© Steven Raichlen’s Healthy Latin Cooking, Rodale Press, 1998

Cactus or Prickly Pear
Also known as nopalito (leaves), higo chumbo, tuna, Barbary pear, Indian fig, cactus pear (Opuntia spp.).

The prickly pear is the fruit of a cactus of Central American origin now naturalised in many parts of the world — including the Mediterranean — where the prickly plant does double duty as a source of food (both fruits and young paddles are eaten) and as a protective thicket for enclosing livestock.

The body of the plant is formed by the paddles:  leaf-stems on whose outer edges the flowers and fruit appear.  Both paddles and fruit are protected by clusters of vicious thorns which are very hard to remove once embedded in the fingers.

Technically a berry, the fruits are oval, small enough to cradle in the palm of the hand — which would be unwise as they're covered in evenly-spaced bunches of needle-sharp thorns.  They ripen from green through yellow to scarlet, darkening in some species to a deep purple-black, while others remain a brilliant yellow.

The flesh is studded with small tender seeds and varies in colour from shocking pink to soft cream, while the flavour and texture is somewhere between a strawberry and a banana, though it lacks acidity, rather like watermelon.  Juicy, but without a strongly-defined character, the prickly pear is at its best when combined with a more sharply-flavoured fruit or juice or with a shake of Angostura Bitters.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Chiles

Of all the gifts that the New World bestowed on the Old, none had a wider impact than chile peppers.  Within a century of its "discovery" by Columbus, the chile pepper had literally circumnavigated the globe and been introduced to regions as diverse as China, India, Thailand, Africa, and Hungary.  Everywhere it went, the chile was enthusiastically embraced.

Yet nowhere did the use of chiles become more widespread and sophisticated than in the motherland, the Americas.  At least one member of the chile pepper family is enjoyed in every country in Latin America-from Perú’s ají amarillo to Brazil's fiery malagueta.  México is best known for chile eating.  And rightly so.  Mexican cooks use an extraordinary variety of fresh and dried chile peppers to create a whole spectrum of gustatory effects.

© Steven Raichlen’s Healthy Latin Cooking, Rodale Press, 1998

Okra
Also known as ladies' fingers, gumbo (West Indies), quiabo (Brazil) (Hibiscus esculentus).

A pod-vegetable, okra is an ancient cultivar of the hibiscus family, known to the Ancient Egyptians, imported from Africa as part of slave-culture, and established in the Caribbean and Brazil in the 17th century.

A small tree-like annual with pretty yellow trumpet-shaped flowers, it is a member of a family which includes the cotton-plant and the roselle (raw material of sorrel, a refreshing drink popular at Christmas in the Caribbean).

The part of the plant of interest to the cook is the immature seed-pods — ridged, finger-shaped with one pointed end and one capped, about the length of a thumb — though the young leaves are also edible.  Two varieties are grown, one longer than the other.  In cross-section, it looks like a miniature wheel with tiny seeds sticking to the spokes.  The flavour is pleasantly pea-like, while the juices are naturally gluey in texture (mucilaginous), its chief attraction as a soup-thickener.

Cook like green beans or in any recipe which suits the summer squash.  To avoid bleeding out the mucilage, trim the stalk without cutting into the pod and leave the tail in place.  Some — not me — don't like the glueyness: to minimize this, cook the okra with a little lemon juice or vinegar; for the same reason, some cooks don't add salt during the cooking.  To reduce the mucilaginousness still further, sprinkle with salt and leave in a warm place to dry for an hour.   Okra flour, milled from dried okra pods, can be used to thicken and add nutritional value to soups and stews.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002

Tomatillo
Also known as tomate verde, miltomate, tomate de capote (Mexico), green tomato (Physalis ixocarpa).

A smallish tomato-like vine-fruit about the size of a hen's egg, the tomatillo is native to Mexico and Guatemala, and belongs to the same family as the physalis or cape gooseberry.  Used in the cookery of the Aztecs, it is much valued in Mexico as a sauce ingredient — essential in green sauces, to which it imparts a gluey texture and lemony flavour — and to a lesser extent in Guatemala.

A bushy perennial with tomato-like leaves, usually grown as an annual, the tomatillo has downward-pointing, lantern-like fruits enclosed in the green exterior husk or calyx — mildly toxic — which are common to all Physalis species.  As the fruit swell, the husk becomes brittle and papery and bursts.

The fruit is green even when ripe, though it can progress to yellow or purple.  The flesh — crisp and juicy when raw, soft and glutinous when cooked — is solid all the way through, sprinkled with seeds tender enough to crunch between the teeth.  The flavour is that of gooseberry and apple sauce, with a touch of lemon zest.

To prepare, remove the papery covering and rinse (don't worry about scrubbing off the sticky substance round the stalk-end) and chop. It is usually eaten cooked, though in Central Mexico it is sometimes used in a raw salsa as a dip for barbecued meat.  The skin is very fine — no need to remove it.

© Elisabeth Luard: The Latin American Kitchen
Kyle Cathie Limited 2002