美国国家公共电台 NPR NPR Holiday Leftovers Presents: Lulu Garcia-Navarro's Monteria

 

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: 

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer. The last few weeks, we've been asking our colleagues here at NPR for their favorite holiday dishes. We've covered stuffing, mofongo and my favorite way to use Thanksgiving leftovers². And we have a recipe now from Lulu Garcia-Navarro. You'll be hearing a lot from her very soon. She's joining us as the host of WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY starting next month.

But today, she's at her sister's home in Miami and she's going to tell us about monteria. Hello, Lulu.

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE³: Hi.

WERTHEIMER: So you have company with you for this conversation?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I do have company. My sister Caroline (ph) is here. She was a professional chef, and so this is her recipe. You know, I had my own recipe but when she took a look at it, as you can imagine, she thought she could improve on it, which she could. And so that's the recipe you'll see online.

WERTHEIMER: (Laughter).

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sibling⁴ rivalry⁵.

WERTHEIMER: Before we talk about the dish, today is Nochebuena, right? Explain that.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, Nochebuena is Christmas Eve. And that is really when Cuban-Americans and actually many people from Hispanic or Latino origin celebrate Christmas. It's the big night when everyone gets together, they eat, they open the presents and then they go to midnight mass. And that is generally how it's done. And for Cuban-Americans as well, it is the big moment.

And we generally celebrate with roasted pork. That is the main dish along with black beans and rice and yuca with mojo, which is a kind of garlic sauce, so all these kind of very traditional Caribbean foods.

WERTHEIMER: So I'm guessing you end up with a lot of leftovers.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You end up with a lot of leftovers, and that is where you get monteria. Basically, the next day on the 25, everyone gathers for lunch and you use these leftovers in this specific dish. And everyone sort of sits and gathers again together. And for Cuban Americans, you know, this is a dish that comes from the island, obviously. And many people fled after Castro's regime came to power.

And so, you know, the recipes that Cubans use have sort of been frozen in time in many ways. And so they've become very important - a way of binding⁶ Cuban identity at a time when, obviously, they no longer have that direct connection to Cuba under the Castros.

WERTHEIMER: Now, Caroline, I understand this is your recipe, sister Caroline. How do you make this dish?

CAROLINE: Well, it's a very special dish. It really goes to the frugal⁷ core of Cubans, which is taking, you know, the worst of everything and making something delicious out of it. So you take your Cuban pork from the night before and you make a sofrito. A sofrito is basically peppers and onions and garlic that you saute in olive oil with a little oregano and cumin.

And then you fold in your leftover¹ pork and some tomato sauce or tomatoes and some white wine or some cooking sherry, or whatever you have on hand, and a little bit of naranja agria, which is the best part of any Cuban meal. It's usually Seville oranges, but when you can't find them, you can sort of take half of orange juice and half of lime juice and mix it together and you get something very similar.

And then you just let that cook for about 45 minutes until everything melts together. Now, every single place has its own variant⁸. And some people put olives in, some people put raisins⁹ in it. But the core of the recipe is basically just that. And it is delicious.

WERTHEIMER: And how do you serve it? Are we to spoon this sort of stewy (ph) pork thing?

CAROLINE: Exactly, it's a stewy (ph) pork thing. And you basically put it in a bowl with a little chopped parsley. As I told my sister, foodies will use Italian parsley, but Cubans use good, old curly. And then you serve it with yuca, black beans and rice, of course, and the fried sweet plantains - can't have a Cuban meal without that.

WERTHEIMER: Have you made any changes in this dish from, say, your mama's recipe?

CAROLINE: You know, not really. The traditional pimento stuff, you know, olives and the traditional cooking sherry that, you know, Grandma used, honestly, that is as good as it gets. It doesn't need much else. Honestly, it doesn't. I think that's, like, the heart of the Cuban Christmas because this is a sort of echo of what our parents and grandparents did when they were living in Cuba.

People want to preserve it pretty much as close to the original as they can because it's a time of not only eating and celebrating Christmas but also of memories.

WERTHEIMER: NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro and her sister Caroline. Thank you both. And everybody, if you go to WEEKEND EDITION's Facebook page, you can see a more detailed¹⁰ recipe for monteria.

1 leftover   

n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的

参考例句：

• These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
• Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。

2 leftovers   

n.剩余物，残留物，剩菜

参考例句：

• He can do miracles with a few kitchen leftovers.他能用厨房里几样剩饭做出一顿美餐。
• She made supper from leftovers she had thrown together.她用吃剩的食物拼凑成一顿晚饭。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 sibling   

n.同胞手足(指兄、弟、姐或妹)

参考例句：

• Many of us hate living in the shadows of a more successful sibling.我们很多人都讨厌活在更为成功的手足的阴影下。
• Sibling ravalry has been common in this family.这个家里，兄弟姊妹之间的矛盾很平常。

5 rivalry   

n.竞争，竞赛，对抗

参考例句：

• The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
• He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。

6 binding   

有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的

参考例句：

• The contract was not signed and has no binding force. 合同没有签署因而没有约束力。
• Both sides have agreed that the arbitration will be binding. 双方都赞同仲裁具有约束力。

7 frugal   

adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的

参考例句：

• He was a VIP,but he had a frugal life.他是位要人，但生活俭朴。
• The old woman is frugal to the extreme.那老妇人节约到了极点。

8 variant   

adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体

参考例句：

• We give professional suggestions according to variant tanning stages for each customer.我们针对每位顾客不同的日晒阶段，提供强度适合的晒黑建议。
• In a variant of this approach,the tests are data- driven.这个方法的一个变种，是数据驱动的测试。

9 raisins   

n.葡萄干( raisin的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• These raisins come from Xinjiang,they taste delicious. 这些葡萄干产自新疆，味道很甜。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mother put some raisins in the cake. 母亲在糕饼中放了一些葡萄干。 来自辞典例句

10 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。