Snacking State-by-State: Wyoming I - Yeah, well I'm sick of beans.

Here it is!  I've reached the literal end of the State-by-State series with the last state in alphabetical order, Wyoming.  True, there are two Wyoming posts coming.  Plus, as I said in the final Wisconsin post, I am doing ten more of these to tie up things on a region-by-region basis.  But when I started on November 21, 2010, with my first Alabama post (which I later split into two posts), I had only hoped I would get this far.  Now here I am, folks.  Here I am.

Official Name: State of Wyoming
State Nickname: The Equality State, The Cowboy State
Admission to the US: July 10, 1890 (#44)
Capital: Cheyenne (largest)
Other Important Cities: Casper (2nd largest), Laramie (3rd largest), Gillette (4th largest); Jackson (largest town, would be 10th largest city - this is the town in the middle of Jackson Hole) 
Region: West, Mountain West, Big Sky Country; Mountain (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Bison, Pinyon Nut
Bordered by: Montana (north), South Dakota (northeast), Nebraska (southeast), Colorado (south), Utah (southwest), Idaho (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: bison (mammal), cutthroat trout (fish), western wheat grass (grass) 
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Native American (Shoshone) and frontier foods, especially beans, beef and bison; game animals such as deer, elk and moose; sheep; bread

Like the rest of the Rockies and Big Sky Country, Wyoming's is a hearty mixture of frontier and Native American - in this case Shoshone - foods.  Native Americans would have subsisted on the ever-present beans, bears and bison.  And as our friends at the Food Time Line point out, the earliest non-Native settlers were prospectors, bringing their food traditions from Back East.  They quote Hilde Gabriel Lee's Taste of the States [1992] in discussing the earliest settler foods of the Equality State:

While the settlers were building their homesteads and planting crops, they subsisted on braised bear meat, venison steak, hominy cooked with dried beef, and sometimes rice with honey and cinnamon. Pioneer women soon became experts at improvising, For coffee they roasted anything that would turn brown over a fire. They used a Dutch oven for everything from boiling water to baking cakes [Lee 1992:235]

They likely used that same reliable Dutch oven for cooking beans, which were more of a staple in Wyoming than I had realized.  It was important for the sheep herders to get these cheap and widely available staples.  And as anyone who's seen Brokeback Mountain will know its most important social message of all, more so than its message of forbidden love between two cow hands in mid-century Wyoming: cowboys hate beans.

Jack and Ennis weren't the only cowboys to (have to) indulge in can after can of beans (all those beans).  Many a cowpoke had to do the same.  So it's no surprise that for my first Wyoming post I would go there.  But there are so many recipes for beans from Wyoming that it's difficult to choose one.  For certain, most of the recipes I've seen incorporate many kinds of beans together, so I was not going to escape that.  In the end, I used a bean recipe from Dennis Steele and Molly Myer at the Bit-O-Wyo Ranch in Cheyenne.  Theirs uses quite a variety of beans.  And I even got to break out my Dutch oven for this one, too.

The Recipe: Bit-O-Wyo Beans (Wyoming Beans)

For these Bit-O-Wyo Ranch beans you will need the following:

First, assemble all of the following types of beans (none of which was more than $1.50):
* garbanzo beans
* black beans
* baby lima beans (the only one I couldn't find in a can; I had to get a bag of the dried variety)
* kidney beans
* generic old baked beans

To add to that, get the following:
* bacon (yes I was out of bacon.  Sue me.  Was about $4.50ish at Harris Teeter)
* ground beef (I only needed half a pound, so I got as much - $7 per pound of Angus beef, so it only cost me about $3.50, again at Harris Teeter)
* Dijon mustard (had it)
* brown sugar (same)
* onion (less than a dollar)
* ketchup (I had this, too)
* apple cider vinegar (how can I be out of bacon but not this?)

If any beans need soaking - to wit: these baby lima beans - soak them overnight.

Next, brown your bacon and beef in a cast iron skillet.

Add to that your onions, and continue to cook until the bacon is rendered.

Next we're going to transfer everything into an oven-safe pot, like this Dutch oven, which seemed like the most logical choice for Wyoming Beans anyway.

Dump all your beans into your Dutch oven.

Add the mustard, ketchup, vinegar and brown sugar.

And then add the onion and browned meat.  I really should have rendered this bacon a bit more, I think, but it was fine.

Bake in the oven at 350°F for about 40 to 45 minutes.

And you end up with this hearty pot of beans!

Like I said, this is hearty.  It's a big mess of beans, I'll give it that - beans I would not normally throw together.  While I probably wouldn't eat these various beans together again, I would recommend this as a filling way to use up a whole mess o' beans.  And it is comfort food: nice, hot comfort food for a chilly day.  Unless you're herding sheep or something.  Speaking of which: let's have the love theme from Brokeback Mountain play us out as we eat our beans.

Sources:

Lee, Hilde Gabriel.  Taste of the States: A Food History of America.  Howell Press: Charlottesville, VA, 1992.

"maestrojed" (Youtube user).  "Balls: The Movie - Rocky Mountain Oysters".  Posted July 9, 2010.

Steele, Dennis, and Molly Myer.  "Bit-O-Wyo Beans".  Bit-O-Wyo Ranch, date unknown.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Wyoming" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Wyoming".

Snacking State-by-State: Puerto Rico I - A few boricua staples in one!

Before heading up the 95 to the smallest state in the Union, I wanted to give a nod to the largest of US territories, a Caribbean island that has had much influence on the New York and nuyorican culinary landscape, as well as the American food frontier in general.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico)
Is it a state? Nope, it's a territory - the largest one in the United States
Official Languages: Spanish and English, with Spanish as the more widely spoken language
Territorial Nicknames: La Isla del Encanto (The Island of Enchantment); Borinquen (from the original Taíno name for the island, Borikén)
Cession to the US: December 10, 1898 (after winning autonomy from Spain on November 25, 1897)
Capital: San Juan (largest)
Other Important Cities: Bayamón (2nd largest), Carolina (3rd largest), Ponce (4th largest)
Region: Caribbean; South Atlantic (US Census)
Bordered by: the Caribbean Sea (all sides)
Closest land mass: Dominican Republic, a little more than 50 miles to the west
Official Territorial Foods and Edible Things: none
Some Famous and Typical Foods: Puerto Rican food (duh) - a mixture of Taíno, West African and Spanish influences, including: sofrito, tostones, arroz con habichuleas (con gandules around Christmas), mofongo, tembleque; ají dulce (sweet peppers indigenous to Puerto Rico); piña colada

Puerto Rico is, of course, not the only territory of the United States: the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas Islands also merit attention.  But Puerto Rico is the largest, the closest, and has the most citizens making regular trips back and forth to the mainland.  As such, it has has lots of influence on the American culinary landscape - specifically the Northeastern one, as New York City has the country's largest Puerto Rican population outside of, well, Puerto Rico itself. (NB: this is not meant to ignore other prominent Puerto Rican communities in the US, specifically in South Florida).

Puerto Rican cuisine's prominence on the New York culinary landscape is part of the larger Nuyorican community.  My guide book has been Puerto Rican Cuisine in America [2002] by Oswald Rivera, who writes certainly not the first Puerto Rican cookbook (perhaps the first Nuyorican one), but a very comprehensive one nonetheless.  Rivera helps to define Nuyorican culture and identity for his readers, including in food terms:

[A Nuyorican] partakes of a culture and enjoys a cuisine that combines elements of traditional Puerto Rican cooking with infusions of new ideas and new ways of doing things inspired by the new urban environment of New York. [Rivera 2002:ix]

In doing these next few Puerto Rico posts, I realize that they are not only an exploration of some of the isla del encanto's standard foods, but also a token nod back to New York and the Big Apple, which I already thoroughly covered a few months back.  Not to give all this extra attention to New York over and above all the other states here, but ignoring these strong Nuyorican elements makes little sense.

Whether the cuisine is puertorriqueño or neoyorquino, Rivera says there is no definitive way to describe it [2002:x].  "Our cuisine is a potpourri of various elements...[drawing] heavily on Spanish, native Caribbean and African influences.  It's heavy on spices, though Nuyorican cuisine has gotten somewhat milder..." [2002:x].  Among some of the most prominent features include fresh ingredients, pork and beef, and beans and rice - lots of beans and rice.  Of course, this last part is a staple throughout Latin America and the Caribbean: in Mexico it's arroz con frijoles, in Cuba it's either that or congri (if cooked together), in Peru it's fried like a pancake - this is called tacu tacu , and in Portuguese-speaking Brazil it's arroz com feijão.  It's important outside of Latin America too, whether it's Haiti's diri kole ak pwa or Louisiana's Cajun beans and rice (in the US, the beans come first for some reason; everywhere else, it's the rice that gets top billing).

In Puerto Rico and the Nuyorican world it's arroz con habichuelas - rice with red beans.  Rivera points out that during the holidays the beans may be pigeon peas instead (arroz con gandules), but rice with red kidney beans is the standard, and for this you typically prep the kidney beans first, in that other very important Puerto Rican ingredient, sofrito.  The sofrito is somewhat like the Cajun three sisters of onion, celery and green pepper: it is ubiquitous in many dishes.  Sofrito has more ingredients, but according to Rivera [2002:xii] it typically includes cilantro (often called culantro), green bell pepper, garlic, onion, recao and ají dulce.  These last two are probably quite easy to find in both Puerto Rico and New York.  They are not, however, so easy to find in Baltimore, so I had to find semi-reasonable substitutes.  Mind you: you can easily find Goya brand recaito and sofrito in a jar.  But to make the stuff from scratch you have to track down the originals.  Most of the Latin American groceries I've been to in Baltimore mostly carry Mexican and Central American ingredients.  I may be dense, but I haven't been able to locate Puerto Rican ají dulce, that small, sweet pepper common in Puerto Rican cooking.  Instead I opted for red bell pepper - not the same, but still a sweet pepper.  As far as recao, even Rivera suggests this is optional, and his uncle prefers to use regular old parsley (which is what I did).


The recipe: Arroz con habichuelas

There are a few steps here.  First I made the sofrito, then the habichuelas and finally the arroz con...

For the sofrito you will either need the jarred stuff - easier, probably not as good, but will more likely have the right ingredients in it - or if you do it from scratch (I did using the sofrito recipe on pages xii and xiii - it's that important - of Rivera's Puerto Rican Cuisine in America):
*cilantro (not difficult to find.  I had some left over from that Thai food truck recipe from Oregon)
* parsley (no recao on hand, but I have this on my porch)
* garlic (had it)
* yellow onion (same)
* green bell pepper (about $2 per lb, or about $1 for this one)
* ají dulce (as noted above, I had a bit of trouble tracking this down.  I substituted red bell pepper)

Most cooks also add tomato sauce, but usually hold off until the sofrito is in the pot with whatever it is cooking with.

For the beans (recipe on pages 201 and 202 of Rivera's book - I did use the sofrito method), you will need the sofrito along with:
* kidney beans (duh - beans are not as cheap as they used to be, but still at $1.50 for a pound they still aren't going to break me)
* tomato sauce ($1 for a can)
* oregano (had it, need more)
* salt (same)
* beef bouillon (yup, same)
* olive oil (again, had it)
* one potato (forgot to put it in the photo, but it is in the final product)

For the arroz con habichuelas (on pages 184 and 185 of Rivera's book) you will need the above red beans recipe along with some other ingredients I forgot to put in the above photo - not just more onion and green bell pepper, but also salt, pepper, oregano, olive oil and the following two important ingredients:

* rice (this really is becoming pricier.  I ended up buying the cheap 1 lb bag for about $1 at Wegman's)

* salt pork (the brand I typically buy has vanished from the supermarket shelves for some reason, so I bought Virginia fatback for about $2.30 per lb at Giant)

Start your prep the night before, rinsing the beans in a colander...

...and soaking them in cold water overnight.

The sofrito is not difficult to make: just chop up everything and throw it in your blender.

It will come out like this.

The next day, set your beans a boiling.

Add the sofrito, oregano, potato (peeled and cubed), bouillon, salt and pepper, and tomato sauce.

The author's mother also adds a little red wine - a tip from a Cuban friend of hers.  I went ahead and did this as well.  Boil (will take about 5 minutes), lower heat, cover and simmer for half an hour until thickened.

To continue with the arroz con habichuelas, reserve a few cups of the liquid from the beans to add to the rice.

Drain the rest and set aside.

Rinse the rice and set aside.

Render the salt pork with a little olive oil (I should have spent more time rendering, or just used bacon which renders much more quickly.  Also note: cubing fatback takes more effort than I realized).

Add the vegetables and saute for a few minutes, and then add the liquid, rice, beans and other ingredients.

Boil for five minutes until liquid is absorbed, then cover and simmer over low heat for another half an hour.  Again, it was starting to burn to the bottom at this point so I had to add more liquid (This always happens with this pot, no matter how faithfully I follow the recipe.  Note to self: maybe consider getting a new pot.)

In the end you will get this.  Yes, I added a red chile pepper for a little spice.

Here we are, a staple in lean times and good times.  The taste of the sofrito doesn't jump out at you - it's mild and it permeates the rice and beans.  This is filling, flavorful and just good.  And despite all the steps you have to take it really isn't that difficult to do.  Now this is going to inspire me to try rice with beans from other areas of Latin America.


Sources:

Deane, Zain.  "Mofongo".  Go Puerto Rico (GoPuertoRico.About.com), date unknown.  Copyright 2012, About.com, All rights reserved.

El Boricua (ElBoricua.com).  "Mofongo".  Date unknown.  Coyright 2012, El Boricua, All rights reserved.

Gill, Nicholas.  "The History of the Piña Colada".  New World Review, 2009.  Copyright 2009, New World Review, All rights reserved.

Goya.  "Piña Colada: How to Make Piña Colada".  Date unknown.  Copyright 2012 Goya Foods, Inc., All rights reserved.

Goya.  "Tembleque - Coconut Pudding: Quick, Coconut Gelatin".  Date unknown.  Copyright 2012 Goya Foods, Inc., All rights reserved.

International Bartender Association. "Piña Colada".  Last accessed 2010 (archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, Archive.org)

Rivera, Oswald.  Puerto Rican Cuisine in America: Nuyorican and Bodega Recipes.  Second edition.  Four Walls Eight Windows: New York, 2002.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Puerto Rico" and "Puerto Rican cuisine" pages and other pages.

Snacking State-by-State Mashup 8: Slow Cooked Green Chile Tomato Sauce Beans with Pine Nuts

What can one do with a few stray pieces of salt pork, a handful of pine nuts, some leftover green chile sauce and some slices of pork roll?  Throw them into a crock pot with some beans and tomato sauce, that's what.

The mashup recipe: Slow Cooked Green Chile Tomato Sauce Beans with Pine Nuts

Makes 4 to 6 servings as a main dish, 8 to 12 as a side

Ingredients (state flag indicates State-by-State post where ingredient was featured. Ingredients with no flag were not specifically used for any one post.)

1/2 lb northern beans, soaked overnight

3 oz salt pork

2 slices pork roll (Taylor ham)

2 to 3 T pine nuts

1/2 to 1 cup New Mexican green chile sauce (or chopped New Mexican green chiles)

2 c basic tomato sauce (actually, this was not the sauce I made for this recipe but some extra I had in the freezer.  I figured why not just use it now?)

juice of 1/2 lime

1 shot tequila (for the beans, not for you)

grated pecorino romano to taste

2 cloves garlic


1/4 onion (chopped)

After soaking the beans, place them in the slow cooker.

Add the chopped onion...

...the garlic and pine nuts...

...and the salt pork.

Cut the pork roll into little squares...

...and add them to the slow cooker.

Add the green chile sauce...

...the lime juice...

...the tequila...

...and the tomato sauce.

Barely cover the whole thing with water.

Set the slow cooker for four hours...

...on HIGH setting.

Four hours later, you have this.

This is pretty easy, and very filling.  The beans turned out lovely, though I would have loved to add more green chile sauce (I was saving some for an enchilada and ran out).  Also, I would have liked a stronger tequila taste, though I didn't expect it.  It does smell a little like lime and tequila the next day - faint, but distinct.  You can hardly taste the pine nuts, so I think that ended up being a waste of something expeisnve I could have used in something else.

Overall really, it's not easy to screw up beans in a slow cooker.  This is lovely with the grated cheese that just melts with the heat of the beans (and that I forgot to add in the photo).