By Mangie Bechara
Growing up in Puerto Rico in the early 2000s, I have such fond memories of cooking Bistec Encebollado (steak with onions) with Rice and Beans with my Dad. As ‘70s rock music plays in the background, my Dad and I prepare the ingredients. We always divide the cooking tasks, I take chopping the onions, peppers, pumpkin, and potatoes for the beans while he takes cutting the tenderloin filet for the bistec. As we talk, chop, and sing, the sweet aroma of the boiling beans fills the kitchen air. This is the smell I think of when I miss home when I miss Puerto Rican food, when I miss cooking with my Dad. This smell isn’t possible without a key ingredient – tomato sauce. Tomato sauce is a major ingredient in most Puerto Rican foods, but along with “sofrito” (onions, garlic, cilantro, olive oil, green pepper), it gives the most flavor to beans. This flavor fills you up; it gives a sweet feeling, like you are being hugged and told everything will be okay. This was the first Puerto Rican dish I learned to make, and now it has become my favorite flavor and aroma of home.
Every time I return from college, my Dad and I take a daddy-daughter day to buy the ingredients and cook the dish that reminds me so much of where I come from. Making Bistec Encebollado (steak with onions) with Rice and Beans with my Dad is one of my favorite things to do. It brings us closer. The song Father and Son always comes up at one point while cooking; my Dad is a huge Cat Stevens fan. It is mainly about Cat Stevens advising his son, which is exactly what happens while we cook this dish. Unknowingly, we pour out our feelings and life goals. We talk about our lives in detail while cooking. Don’t get me wrong, we share a lot with each other, but when we cook, we open up the most and share emotions. The food is almost like a buffer; we concentrate so much on cutting the ingredients correctly that we don’t think about what we are talking about. We revisit his childhood, the good and the bad memories; talk about my deceased grandfather, who also loved cooking; and my life at college: my friends, and even boys, which I would otherwise be too embarrassed to talk about with him. Cooking has acted as a medium of communication for years, and I owe much of what I know about my Dad to spending time with him in the kitchen.