I need to talk about the mofongo.
I have been trying to explain mofongo to people in Colorado for years. I have attempted to describe it. I have cooked it. I have eaten it from the one Puerto Rican restaurant I found that comes close. None of it is the same as sitting at a table in Old San Juan with the window open and the music coming in from the street and a plate of mofongo that was made by someone who has been making it their entire life.
My daughter took one bite and went quiet. I watched her face. She chewed slowly. She looked at her plate. She looked at me. She said: 'Why doesn't it taste like this at home?'
I told her: some things only taste like themselves in the place they come from.
She nodded. She understood that in a way that went beyond food.
We ate our way through Puerto Rico. Tostones. Pernil. Arroz con gandules. Alcapurrias from a cart near the Castillo that I still think about. Fresh fruit that had no business being as sweet as it was. Coffee — God, the coffee — in small cups that tasted like the ground itself.
My daughter put her phone down at dinner the second night. I noticed but I didn't say anything. She was watching the street, listening to the music that came from somewhere — always somewhere in Puerto Rico there is music — and eating slowly and being fully present in a way that fourteen-year-olds sometimes are not.
I thought about all the meals we have eaten rushing somewhere, distracted, functional. This was not functional. This was communion. Food as connection. Food as identity. Food as a letter written by generations who wanted you to know: this is who we are. Taste it.
If you go to Puerto Rico — when you go — do not eat at places that look like anywhere else. Look for the places with the handwritten menus and the three tables and the woman in the back who has been cooking for forty years. She knows. Let her feed you.
Buckle up, buttercup. Some conversations happen at the table. Make sure you are sitting at the right ones.