There is a strong artistic presence among Puerto Ricans, whether from artists formally trained in art schools, or self-taught amateurs.
Serious students of Puerto Rican art always go to the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in the Dominican Convent in Old San Juan. It’s the best source of information on the island about Puerto Rican arts and crafts.
With its dozen or so museums and even more art galleries, Old San Juan is the greatest repository of Puerto Rican arts and crafts. Galleries sell everything from pre-Columbian artifacts to paintings by relatively contemporary artists such as Angel Botello, who died in 1986. The Galería Botello, at 208 del Cristo St., was his former home. He restored the colonial mansion himself; now his paintings and sculptures are on display there.
The most impressive of the island’s crafts are the Santos, carved religious figures that have been produced since the 1500s. Craftspeople who make these are called santeros; using clay, gold, stone, or cedar wood, they carve figurines representing saints, usually from 8 to 20 inches tall. Before the Spanish colonization, small statues called cemi stood in native tribal villages and camps as objects of veneration, and Puerto Rico’s santos may derive from that pre-Columbian tradition. Every town has its patron saint and every home has its santos to protect the family. For some families, worshiping the santos replaces a traditional mass.
Although Puerto Rican cooking is somewhat similar to both Spanish and Mexican cuisine, it is a unique tasty blend of Spanish, African, Taíno, and American influences, using such indigenous seasonings and ingredients as coriander, papaya, cacao, nispero, apio, plantains, and yampee. Locals call their cuisine “cocina criolla”.
Although Puerto Rican cooking is somewhat similar to both Spanish and Mexican cuisine, it is a unique tasty blend of Spanish, African, Taíno, and American influences, using such indigenous seasonings and ingredients as coriander, papaya, cacao, nispero, apio, plantains, and yampee. Locals call their cuisine “cocina criolla”.
The aroma that wafts from kitchens throughout Puerto Rico comes from adobo and sofrito -blends of herbs and spices that give many of the native foods their distinctive taste and color. Adobo, made by crushing together peppercorns, oregano, garlic, salt, olive oil, and lime juice or vinegar, is rubbed into meats before they are roasted. Sofrito, a potpourri of onions, garlic, coriander, and peppers browned in either olive oil or land and colored with achiote (annatoo seeds), imparts the bright-yellow color to the island’s rice, soups, and stews.
A festive island dish is lechón asado, or barbecued pig, which is usually cooked for a party of 12 or 15. It is traditional for picnics and al fresco parties; one can sometimes catch the aroma of this dish wafting through the palm trees, a smell that must have been familiar to the Taino peoples. The pig is basted with jugo de naranjas agría (sour orange juice) and achiote coloring. Green plantains are peeled and roasted over hot stones, then served with the barbecued pig as a side dish. The traditional dressing served with the pig is ali-li-monjili, a sour garlic sauce. The sauce combines garlic, whole black peppercorns, and sweet seeded chile peppers, flavored further with vinegar, lime juice, and olive oil.
Finish your meal with strong, black, aromatic Puerto Rican coffee, which has been produced in the island’s high-altitude interior for more than 300 years. Originally imported from the nearby Dominican Republic, coffee is still among the island’s exports and is a suitable ending for any well-presented meal.
Because the island does not produce wine, it is entirely proper to order a cold beer before even looking at the menu. Beer, of course, is called cerveza throughout the Spanish-speaking world, the most popular brand on Puerto Rico is Medalla.
Rum is the national drink, and you can buy it in almost any shade. Puerto Rico is the world’s leading rum producer; 80% of the rum consumed in the United States hails from the island.
Today’s rum bears little resemblance to the raw and grainy beverage consumed by the renegades and pirates of the Spanish Main. Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane, from which rum is distilled, to the Caribbean on his second voyage to the New World, and in virtually no time it became the regional drink.
One of Puerto Rico’s notable exports is its music, which is probably the predominant Caribbean music heard in the United States.
The musical traditions of the Spanish and Africans can also be heard in Puerto Rico’s music. At least four different instruments were adapted from the six-string Spanish classical guitar: the requinto, the bordonua, the cuatro , and the triple, each of which produces a unique tone and pitch.
Also prevalent on the island are such percussion instruments as tambours (hollowed tree trunks covered with stretched-out animal skin), maracas (gourds filled with pebbles or dried beans and mounted on handles), and a variety of drums whose original designs were brought from Africa by the island’s slaves. All these instruments contribute to the rich variety of folk music with roots in the cultural melting pot of the island’s Spanish, African, and Taíno traditions.
The major type of music coming out of Puerto Rico is salsa, the rhythm of the islands. Its name literally translated as the “sauce” that makes parties happen. Originally developed within the Puerto Rican community of New York, it draws heavily from the musical roots of the Cuban and the African-Caribbean experience. Highly danceable, its rhythms are hot, urba, rhythmically sophisticated, and compelling. Today, the center of salsa has probable shifted from New York back to Puerto Rico.