Professors from various Puerto Rican universities agree that the history of Puerto Rican cuisine is largely a legacy of the Taino Indians and the Spaniards, as well as Africans, who influenced the island's gastronomy.
Among the foods that Puerto Rican cuisine adopted from the Tainos are: yuca, malanga, corn, beans, sweet potatoes, pepper, sweet and hot chili, and recao. Following the Spanish conquest, foods such as pork, beef, rice, oil, and various flavorings like oregano, cumin, basil, and almost all the herbs used to make sofrito were introduced.
Directly from Africa came the famous plantain, banana, yam, quimbombó, and beans, but also a staple ingredient in Puerto Rican kitchens, pigeon peas.
Although Puerto Rican cuisine was created as a result of Spanish colonial and imperial projects, it has also had the ability to adapt dishes from other parts of the world and turn them into something local. For example, arroz con dulce. This is a sweet rice dish similar to rice pudding. When brought to Puerto Rico, they didn’t have milk, but they had coconut. They adapted it to their reality and developed arroz con dulce.
Food in Puerto Rico was the result of globalization, with conflicts between slaveholders and slaves, independence advocates and pro-colonialists. Amidst their disputes, they managed to leave behind, among many things, a distinctive gastronomic identity for the Island of Enchantment.
