Ole for Hispanic Fare!

Diverse and delicious, Latin-American cuisine is a diet combination of twenty-two countries.

Hispanic food is a successful blending of ancient haute cuisine and the upscale fast-food fare of the 1980s. Skillfully prepared and seasoned, the inexpensive staples of rice, beans, and corn are receiving their deserved esteem.

Although the term Hispanic food conjures up visions of tacos, enchiladas, chili, tortillas, refried beans, and guacamole, such standbys are just a small sampling of Latin American cuisine. The range of tastes is extensive, with food from twenty-two countries representing every kind of terrain and climate.

Authentic Spanish restaurants, complete with an aesthetic, intimate ambience enhanced by flamenco guitar and traditional dancers with castanets and staccato heels have prospered in America. In Washington, D.C., El Bodegon is a twenty-s-x-year-old establishment in a city where restaurants open and close with the blink of an eye. Jose A. Lopez-Guerra, owner for the past eight years, makes sure that food and entertainment are top quality. The extensive menu includes a wide variety of tapas (appetizers), literally meals in themselves, adhering to the custom of old Madrid.

Despite the elegance of today's Spanish cookery, many of the dishes originated as present food. Flan- an egg custard - and sponge cake, pot-au-feu, and paella began in farmhouses and were prepared differently in each region. There are about thirty different varieties of gazpacho (a cold soup) in La Mancha and Andalusia. Gazpacho was originally prepared in the fields in a large wooden bowl and eaten directly from the bowl with a wooden spoon. Americans north and south of the border have a dozen or more versions, which unlike those made in oldtime farmhouse kitchens, call for electric blenders.

Mexico

Hispanic foods reflect the impact of invasions and racial mixture. In Mexico, the cuisine is basically a blend of Indian and Spanish. Some call it Aztec plus pig, referring to the hogs brought by Spaniards and the lard used for frying. Before the European conquest, the Indians used no cooking gats or oils, preferring tot cook tortillas on pottery griddles. Probably half of all Mexican food nowadays is fired before or after boiling.

Tortillas are the bread of Mexico, eaten plain or with a little chili. They are made of corn meal, patted in to thin unleavened cakes, and toasted or fried. Tortillas can serve as plates, forks, and scoopers for soft foods and soup. With food rolled up inside, the combination becomes a taco, a kind of sandwich. Similarly, a stuffed and rolled flour tortilla is a burro, or - as it is commonly known in the United States - a burrito. A fancier version is the enchilada, which is dipped in a sauce of green or red tomato and fired in deep fat. It is then rolled up like a taco with such fillings as shredded lettuce, onion, cheese, chopped tomato, chopped chicken breast, or coriander. The reaming sauce is poured over the top and can be sprinkled with chopped onion and shredded cheese. There are endless uses for leftover tortillas, particularly in casseroles.

Then there are tostadas, tiny canapé-sized tortillas filled with meat, cheese, sauce, beans, or vegetables and folded like a turnover, with edges crimped and then fired in deep fat. Again, there are endless variations- dough seasoned with dried chili or cheese, for example.

The other Aztec staple is beans, in many sizes and colors. The usual cooking method is boiling until soft, seasoning with chili and herbs, mashing and then frying the whole mixture. When they are stiff enough to hold their shape, they're sprinkled with cheese and decorated with bits of fired tortilla. The result is frijoles refritos, or refried beans.

Chili peppers are generally feared by timid North Americans, and rightly so. But Mexicans are wild about the fierly vegetable with its 140 varieties, often seen stacked high in markets or growing in home gardens. Foreigners marvel at Mexicans' ability to eat chilies raw, as others would munch carrot sticks. The taste buds become desensitized over time. Hotels and restaurants catering to foreigners generally adapt their recipes' chili pepper content, but still try to retain their pleasant aroma. In the past, beef and chicken were so thought that they had to be boiled for hours, usually with sauces laden with chili. Although tender beef and chicken are now available, many stewing recipes remain as staples.

Mexico is famed for moles, the sauces that enliven tortillas. It is generally believed that nothing should be eaten without mole, and the more complicated sauces contain long lists of ingredients. The most popular throughout North and South America is guacamole, made with avocado. Mexico's national dish, mole poblano, is based on an old Indian recipe for turkey, with a chili sauce made with chocolate.

Tex-Mex

The southwest United States take quite naturally to Hispanic food and has developed a subspecies called Tex-Mex. The post Intercontinental Hotel in Houston features a Tex-Mex dinner buffet that includes guacamole with tortilla chips, bowls of civiche, pico gallo with hot sauce, and kidney bean salad. Hot fajitas (stripes of sizzling meat) are carved in the dining room and served with flour tortillas and condiments. Diners can expect to see stuffed jalapeno peppers, enchiladas with sour cream, Texas chili, and corn on the cob. Luncheon could feature black bean soup with sour cream and onions, poussin (baby chicken), roasted corn in husk, jalapeno corn bread muffins and Southwestern hazelnut and almond chocolate cake (with imprinted buffaloes) served with apricot cognac sauce.

Tex-Mex has made an impact upon Washington, D.C., where an annual chili-making contest features congressmen and senators trying to best one another at the chili pot. Ingredients are more closely guarded than state secrets.

The Caribbean

Cuban and Puerto Rican cooling also demonstrates a strong Spanish colonial influence, with its emphasis on the use of rice, tomatoes, garlic, and spices. Many staple dishes combine highly flavored rice with meat, especially chicken or with various kinds of beans. Sofrito, a relatively mild mixture of tomatoes, peppers, capers, onions, and spices, is prepared separately and used as the seasoning base for these popular comestibles.

The native Indian contribution to the cuisine relies on indigenous ingredients. Especially characteristic the creative use made of the plantain, a banana relative that is fired, boiled, stewed and baked - either green or ripe- to produce an endless variety of dishes. Other tropical fruits - mangoes, papayas, pineapples, bananas, coconuts, breadfruit and more - add color and piquancy when cooked in sauces, stews, and desserts. And the many local tubers, such as yuca, batata (sweet potato), and yautia, provide tasty alternatives to rice.

South America

Some of the most exciting, fish dishes are of Hispanic origin. Latinos have an inborn genius for concocting the finest and most colorful seafood, combinations, with, for example, bright red shellfish along-side fresh green spinach leaves, tomatoes, fruits, and tender herbs. From Brazil comes Bahia's popular vatapa, a blend of sea trout and shrimp cooked in coconut milk, peanuts, palm oil and dried shrimp. John Sobrinho, who with his brother Petronio introduced Washingtonians to his native country's cuisine at their Brazil Tropical restaurant, explains the uniqueness of their fare. "Portuguese, primitive Indians and West African slaves," he says, "are the people who established our style." Brazil is the only South American country where imported slaves kept most of their original culture. It is generally recognized that an Afro-Brazilian chef is highly prized, Feijoada, Brazil's national dish, is a stew of black beans with beef, pork, and sausage, served with collard greens, orange slices, and rice.

Argentinean and Uruguayan fare is quite different from that of neighboring countries. The land on both sides on the Rio de la Plata estuary is knows as the great grassy pampa. Spaniards brought cattle to the pampas, and beef became the staff of life, often consumed three times a day. While Argentina is famed for beef, Uruguay raises sheep; hence its cuisine tends to highlight lamb. North Americans have adopted the Argentine style of roasting over smoldering wood fires and many of the pungent marinades, barbecue sauces, and tangy spices have found their way into backyard festivities.

In Peru, the fascinating Inca cuisine developed at twenty thousand feet on the great Andes Mountains. The Spaniards were under stably impressed with the myriad varieties of meats and vegetables developed by the Peruvians. Lima beans, succotash and the papa (potato) are products are skillfully terraced Andean plots. Foreign visitors are awed by the seafood found in the icy Peruvian currents.

Appetizers are often complicated affairs; many contain a shrimp, scallops, and mysterious sea life. In the pre-sushi era, plain down-home North Americans winced at raw fish, but Peruvians had ceviche. This is raw fish cut in half-inch cubes, covered with salted lime and lemon juice and thinly sliced onion, slat, pepper, and garlic. The white delicacy is served with lettuce, sweet potatoes, and choclos corn on the cob).

Foods we now take for granted have deep roots in Peruvian cuisine. Peanuts better was old hat to Peruvians long before Mom began mixing it with jelly for school lunchboxes. Peruvians ate banana chips long before health food stores featured them as snacks.

In Chile, many kinds of corn are used in foods, since beef is relatively scarce. Beans, tomatoes, squash onions, peppers, garlic, olive oil, and herbal spices help make hearty fare. The innovative pastel de choclo is a gently seasoned meat pie with a topping of ground fresh corn instead of a standard pie crust. Olives and raisins appear in unlikely dishes - casseroles, stews and the like.

Abalone, crab, lobster, oysters, mussels, scallops, congrio (some-thing like a conger eel), haddock, and sawfish are among Neptune's abundant delights prominently displayed at Santiago's central market. Chilean scallop stew rivals New England's claim chowder in local popularity, and the Chilean version of a clambake includes lobster, crabs, mussels, oysters, potato patties, beans and various meats - even a suckling pig cooked in a pit.

Hispanic cooker, uniquely combining ingredients and cooking methods from over twenty-two countries, has produced some of the most diverse and delicious dishes appreciated worldwide.