Page 98 - quebec
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Top: The graveyard site at Castillo San Felipe del Morro.
Bottom: Plantains are a Puerto Rican mainstay.
also discovered my favorite Puerto Rican dish: pas- If You Go
telon. By this time, I felt like I had eaten every plan-
tain-based dish in existence including tostones (plain, Hilton Ponce Golf & Casino Resort, 1150 Caribe Ave., Ponce,
fried plantain slices), mofongo (stuffed fried plantain 00716, Puerto Rico, 787-259-7676, hiltonponceresort.com
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potatoes in Close Encounters of the Third Kind), plátanos en al- Palmas Del Mar Oceano Beach Resort, 787-850-0042, pal-
mibar (a plantain dessert), platanutres (plantain chips, which masdelmar.com
hotels could probably sell in a vending machine) and boiled
amarillos (a breakfast cereal of boiled plantains mashed with Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel & Casino, 200 Convention Blvd.,
milk, which tastes way better than it sounds). But there was San Juan, Puerto Rico 00907, 787-993-3500, sheratonpuer-
one more plantain dish — pastelon (a sort of lasagna made toricohotelcasino.com
with plantains).
When our host mentioned he was going to make a special
treat for us that was a traditional Puerto Rican recipe contain-
ing plantains, I almost screamed, “Please, no more plantains!”
Thank goodness I didn’t. The pastelon he baked was one plan-
tain recipe I wish I had. That dish, and the DonQ Rum served
alongside, made our last dinner in Puerto Rico a delicious,
happy celebration of the traditional. (In Puerto Rico, I guess
the Bunch of Bananas song lyrics could be changed from “I’ve
got a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin; they keep the hun-
ger out and the happiness in” to “I’ve got a bunch of plantains
and a bottle of rum; they keep the hunger out and, then, the
happiness come.
98 Wine Dine & Travel Summer 2014

