Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sofrito
(a stew-starter mix of garlic, onion and chili peppers). Cuban food may seem for-
eign and strange, but it's actually quite accessible to even the most conservative palette;
this is basically meat-and-starch cuisine, with an emphasis on huge portions. Main-course
meats are typically accompanied by rice and beans and fried plantains.
With its large number of Central and Latin American immigrants, the Miami area offers
plenty of authentic ethnic eateries. Seek out Haitian
griot
(marinated fried pork), Jamaican
jerk chicken, Brazilian barbecue, Central American
gallo pinto
(red beans and rice) and
Nicaraguan
tres leches
('three milks' cake).
In the morning, try a Cuban coffee, also known as
café cubano
or
cortadito.
This hot
shot of liquid gold is essentially sweetened espresso, while
café con leche
is just
café au
lait
with a different accent: equal parts coffee and hot milk.
Another Cuban treat is
guarapo,
or fresh-squeezed sugarcane juice. Cuban snack bars
serve the greenish liquid straight or poured over crushed ice, and it's essential to an authen-
tic
mojito
. It also sometimes finds its way into
batidos,
a milky, refreshing Latin American
fruit smoothie.
Florida Cookbooks
Cross Creek Cookery,
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
New World Cuisine,
Allen Susser
Miami Spice: The New Florida Cuisine,
Steve Raichlen
The Florida Cookbook: From Gulf Coast Gumbo to Key Lime Pie,
Jeanne Voltz and
Caroline Stuart
Florida Bounty,
Eric and Sandra Jacobs
Southern Cooking
The further north you travel, the more Southern the cooking gets in Florida. This is the sort
of cuisine that makes up in fat what it may lack in refinement. 'Meat and three' is Southern
restaurant lingo for a main meat - such as fried chicken, catfish, barbecued ribs, chicken-
fried steak or even chitlins (hog's intestines) - and three sides: perhaps some combination
of hush puppies, cheese grits (a sort of cornmeal polenta), cornbread, coleslaw, mashed
potatoes, black-eyed peas, collard greens or buttery corn. End with pecan pie, and that's
living. Po' boys are merely Southern hoagies, usually filled with fried nuggets of goodness.
