Eating Puerto Rico: A History of Food, Culture, and Identity

7 Are We Still What We Ate?

199 7 | Are We Still What We Ate? In the four decades from 1960 to the start of the new millennium, Puerto Ricoexperiencedagroundswellofsocioeconomicdevelopmentthathelped transform the gastronomic landscape, radically changing the types and variety of foodstuffs available, as well as the ways in which they were acquired and then prepared, cooked, and brought to the table. Since the mid-1950s, Puerto Ricans have come to know firsthand the blessings (or otherwise) of consumer capitalism, their lives ever more intertwined with automobiles, private residences, television sets, and—not least—new kitchen appliances . Indicative of this trend were the figures for refrigerators and freezers imported onto the island for domestic use. During 1956–57, the total reached 35,327; by 1961–62, it had climbed to 58,271. A similar rise occurred with respect to electric stoves imported from the United States. The figures for 1956–57 and 1964–65 were 9,182 and 17,250, respectively. The inclination on the part of Puerto Ricans to replace and upgrade cooking and kitchen appliances, stoves and refrigerators in particular, has continued into the new century. In 1999, 21,654 stoves were imported from the United States, and in 2001, the island received 77,332 refrigerators from that country.¹ Similarly, whereas in 1956 only thirteen markets in Puerto Rico were classified as supermercados, by 1998 there were 441 such establishments, 221 of which fell into the category of hipermercado.² In addition, food assistance programs were augmented significantly during this period. In 1960, 120,000 Puerto Rican families benefited directly from nutritional aid provided by the government; by 2007, this figure had more than tripled, to 509,339 families, or about 1,078,822 recipients.³ In contrast to past eras, when changes in the basic diet came about slowly and seemed all of a piece, or were constituted by only one discreet thing (the appearance of a new food, or a single structural transformation), the decades between 1950 and 2010 have been the scene of multiple, com- 200 Are We Still What We Ate? plex, and overlapping changes, including: the mass production and supply chain distribution of foodstuffs produced in Puerto Rico and on the mainland ; higher personal and family income levels—especially between 1950 and 1980, though the pattern has reversed in recent years, with a rise in the number of families living under the poverty line;⁴ the increased availability of foodstuffs, in comparison to earlier times when hunger and the possibility of famine confronted large segments of the population, which in turn has boosted the number of overweight and obese adults and children to 66 and 32 percent of the population, respectively;⁵ the development of a distinctly urban food culture, which has borrowed from, adapted, and absorbed the cuisines of other countries and regions; the “specialization” of cooking; the emergence and embedding of a new and almost uncontrolled fast food restaurant culture; and the expansion and homogenization of food production. Furthermore, these and other challenging and sometimes contradictory transformations have taken place against the backdrop of a stagnating local agricultural output and a lopsided dependence on food imports. In 1950, 1,904,000 cuerdas of land were dedicated to agriculture; in 2007 this figure had been reduced by more than two-thirds, to 557,530.⁶ Unsurprisingly , then, in 2008 Puerto Rico imported 740.2 million pounds of food, while producing only 147 million pounds on the island.⁷ The transformative effect of these changes is everywhere visible; yet if one enlarges the field of vision and examines them in light of other factors, such as notions about food in the popular imagination, the use and consumption of traditional foodstuffs, and a wider ambit of rules governing gastronomy and the culture of food, certain fissures and inconsistencies can be discerned. In this last part of the book I have two main objectives in mind: first, to assess and interpret key dimensions of food habits and practices in presentday Puerto Rico in light of certain contemporary theoretical perspectives on diet and food consumption generally, perspectives that are rooted in history, philosophy, and different social studies fields; and second, to employ Alan Warde’s model of “culinary antinomies” to describe the most visible aspects of the relationships that obtained between the Puerto Rican population and food, cooking, and diet at the end of the last century and during the early 2000s. Warde’s thesis provides the clearest lens through which to view and understand contemporary attitudes and habits toward food and the tendency they display toward smoothing out...