A Unique Latin Influence

By Diego Zerpa Chang

No doubt about it, there is a general and prosperous Latin Influence across the entire Caribbean. Starting with the rich Spanish language or with renowned annual events such as the Junkanoo Festival in the Bahamas or Santo Domingo’s Merengue Festival, the mixture of Latin traditions embraced by the Caribbean people is present in many areas, including: culture, education, food, music, religion and work.

The idea of trying to reflect this colorful Latin Influence across the Caribbean’s sun-drenched territory is quite overwhelming, since there are so many elements to choose from. That is why we decided to turn to something simple, to go back to basics, to look for something that you can definitively find anywhere you go across the Caribbean, whether it is in a crystal beach in Jamaica or in the busy streets of Haiti and all the way to your common sidewalk next to a nightclub in Trinidad and Tobago. What exactly are we talking about? We are talking about fritters: a succulent display of deep-fried snacks and appetizers that are unique to the Latin people and that you can find all over the place in the Caribbean.

All you need is a pot filled with boiling oil, a dope mixture stuffed with plenty of beef, pork, ham, cheese or even crab, and patience –a lot of patience–, because once the smell of fritters reaches your nose and travels down your hungry stomach, you will want to have not one, but two, three and maybe even four fritters.

No matter where you go in the Caribbean, you will never have to look too far to find a succulent display of these deep-fried snacks. Alcapurrias, Empanadas, Pastelitos, Tequeños, whatever their names are, fritters are one of the most important elements in the daily life of the Caribbean people, and they come in all shapes and sizes. They are the famous finger foods, very high in calories but even higher in flavor. Dozens and dozens of kiosks produce them on the streets as a fulfilling meal to residents and tourists, and dozens and dozens of restaurants serve them as fine appetizers, embellished with all types of dipping sauces.

Fritters are usually crispy on the outside and are commonly filled with a variety of meat and seafood, the quantity of the filling depending sometimes on the temper of the maker. Fritters are banana-shaped, crescent-shaped, ball-shaped, and stick-shaped. The regular fried dough can also be made out of cassava or mashed plantains, both of which are signature delicacies of the Caribbean islands. Most of the fritters have to be tried to be appreciated, as they taste better than what they look after coming out from the sparkling and hot oil.

People from the Caribbean, like everyone else, love to eat and in doing so have perfected the art of Caribbean cuisine into its own Creole kitchen. The Caribbean menu includes a mixture of ingredients from lands as far away as Asia and Europe and as close as South and Central America. Filled with homemade color blends, jerk seasonings, fruit jellies and the famous hot sauce, Caribbean cooks are always ready to create innovative and flavorful meals. Fritters are exactly that. The aroma that wafts from the kitchens or kiosks where they are charismatically prepared comes from a blend of spices contained inside the fritters’ sizzling filling.

This amazing influence is so unique that it has been exported. Fritters were once thought to be exotic and foreign to the consumers in Europe and the United States, who could not afford to travel to the Caribbean, but importing schemes from companies such as Goya have put a growing number of frozen Empanadas and Pastelitos right on their respective retail shelves. Goya even sells a variety of Caribbean spices –such as the well-known Adobo–, as well as vegetables and fruits for their Latin American costumers who miss the flavor from their native lands.

Truth is that some of the spices which are added to the filling of fritters are world famous for their intense flavors. This intensity –cultivated specially in the Caribbean– is accredited to the high oil substance found in the spices. Take for example annatto seeds, which are solid, reddish seeds with an earthy essence which can be used to give flavor to everything from grains and vegetables to seafood and meats and which can even be transformed into oil by mixing them with a bit of vegetable oil. These same Caribbean spices are the complement of products such as pepper sauces and Sofrito, and, of course, the key ingredients in fritters, a group of traditional fried favorites that you cannot and should not miss on your next Caribbean trip.

(Diego Zerpa Chang is a freelance writer for several publications and a contributor to Island Vibes Magazine. For comments, please feel free to contact him at diego@islandvibesmag.com.)