JAMAICAN MOFONGO

 

     I was reading a fiction piece in The Review yesterday and one passage described a substantive Caribbean dish using bananas (or plantains) and yam to bind it, and when cooked through was immediately mounded on your plate. This is my version! I am using a made-up title as homage to the roots of the author (I forget if there was a name to it in the piece, but I was familiar with the technique and I believe I have had one of those "mofongos" in the Washington Heights borough of NYC back in the day). My binder here are carrots and ube (quite ubiquitous here on Maui; in other words called purple yams) that were condensed with Maui onions and local dark greens. The trick is very little water (or stock) added, you must combine all ingredients in one go over high heat and let them all bake out in the pot's super conduction. Yes, there will be some edges burnt - but that's the idea rendering the tuber's oozing stickiness to release, and once smoking lift the lid and fold in all your mashed veggies and season (I only used kosher salt and chili pepper flakes to offset the sweetness of the yam). This dish is quite heavy and rich and toothsome (as you can see in the photo) and that's why I am countering this punch with the lightness of a tossed salad of butter lettuce and apples and lemon juice. It's hot food and cold food at once. See if you will enjoy it. 

Returning home from Iao this morning after my swim, I hitchhiked and got a ride (the individual was a state ranger, he had seen me at the park many times before, only now without a car), I wasn't a stranger. He said that beginning this summer end of June the park will be closed for six months for expansion of tourist facilities and making sure visits are organized and parking will make sure entrance fees are paid without exception. He said it would be a massive operation leveling wider the existing facility to accommodate more cars - yet, privately in his Tacoma (I was in back of the truck because of equipment in the front) and got sad - for my beloved mountain. Will it hurt her when those heavy machineries start scouring her sacred grounds? Will trees fall wayward and be cut out of life for birds and chickens? Will sediments and rock debris runoff down the hills to the waterfalls spring and muddle the waters' crystallization? What about the moss's sweetness when undisturbed, what will happen to them when the forest starts to rumble? I didn't convey these sentiments to the ranger, all my reaction was to say, I see. And that I will miss the park tremendously. I was dropped off at the light across the state building and thanked him and said see you around. But six months is a long time.