On Being ‘Diasporican’: A New Puerto Rican Cookbook Experiments Without Apology

In advance of the book’s Oct. 18 release date, KQED chatted with Maisonet about nostalgia, the Bay Area’s (somewhat sparse) Puerto Rican food scene and why it took her six years to find a publisher for her book.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Despite the success of your Chronicle column, you (very publicly) had a difficult time finding a publisher for this cookbook. I remember seeing you tweet about the multiple rejections you received. At one point the celebrated chef-humanitarian José Andrés even took up your cause—still to no avail. Why was the idea of a Puerto Rican cookbook such a hard sell, and how were you able to overcome that challenge?

I can only make assumptions based on my experiences. So when you see “101 Ways to Keto/Paleo/Instant Pot Vegan Beans” for the hundredth fucking time, and there are maybe 10 mass-published Puerto Rican cookbooks from the history of ever, you can only assume that the only difference between you and them is skin color. 

That’s the only thing I can see. Because what everyone said—between the agents that rejected me and the editors that rejected me and the publishers that rejected me—they all had the same thing [to say], which was that there is no market for the book. 

I personally think that they are underestimating their audience. In a way, they think consumers are stupid. Clearly we have totally evolved in the ways of global food to the point that Chinese food is not just this amalgamation of what Chinese immigrants think Americans want. Now, Chinese food is based on region, and people are requesting it by region. It’s the same thing for Mexican food. And the same thing can be done for other Latino foods. 

They say, “There’s no market,” but technically there wasn’t a market for any of this shit to begin with. By the time I finally got my book published, that proposal had been schlepped around for six years. Almost everybody in the industry had seen it.

I’m the kind of person who slips in through the cracks during a transition. So I was ready when 2020 hit and brands and publishers and everybody else were scrambling to do the performative activism and find content creators and artists of color. I was already ready.

I literally got my offer the month that George Floyd got murdered. If that wouldn’t have happened, I can guarantee I wouldn’t be in the position that I am right now.

A lot of what’s great about Diasporican is how fresh and bold the writing voice is. Given how challenging it was for you to get your book deal to begin with, did you also have to really fight to keep that voice intact?

I know [my writing] is not for everyone because a woman already gave me two stars on NetGalley for cursing. [laughs]

But because I worked with [since-departed Ten Speed Press editor-in-chief] Lorena [Jones], I did not have to fight to have my voice heard. Remember, this was 2020. This was post-Bon Appetit, post dragging everyone on Twitter with screenshots. Lorena already knew what she was getting into. 

I feel like some people [in the publishing industry] are prepared to take the risk because they know that money can be made. But mostly, the people that we have to deal with are the middle man, like the acquisitions editors. They’re not hired to have that kind of risk assessment or vision. They’re just there to do what’s comfortable.

I didn’t have to go through a middle man. Lorena was the man.

Your book is chock full of delightful recipes, but it also deals with a lot of heavy subject matter—violence, grief, trauma. You write in the intro, “How I became a cook is not a romantic story…There would be no passing down of heirloom cookbooks (I don’t think my grandma ever owned a cookbook), words of encouragement, or time to enjoy a childhood.” While your cookbook is nostalgic in certain ways, it also seems to be fighting against the sentimentality that pervades a lot of food writing, especially the kind trafficking in recipes passed down by grandmothers. Can you talk about the balance you wanted to strike?

I am a nostalgic person, but sometimes nostalgia can be very dangerous, like we’re living in the past or creating a more romanticized version of the past. I am and am not a romantic. I’m not in terms of American consumerism—chocolate and roses for Valentine’s Day. 

But I am a romantic in the sense that I can see the beauty in a lot of shit that people pass every day. The reason I was able to come to the middle in the book is because so much time had already passed. (Also therapy. That shit really works!) I was able to dissect [my childhood], heal, and kind of see why my mom and grandma were the way that they were.

My grandma died in 2015; I started writing the book then. It’s kind of like my grief journey.

What is the biggest misperception that people have about Puerto Rican food?

I feel like almost everyone I’ve spoken to thinks that Puerto Rican is spicy. But why would it be? We do have some condiments that make things spicy, but the food itself isn’t spicy. People are always surprised about that when they dig in. They’re expecting spice, and what they get is flavor. Those are the two things I always hear: “Oh, it’s not spicy” and “Oh, it’s so flavorful.”

Most people’s preconceptions are that French food is the top tier, be-all end-all. But there are other cultures that share the same [characteristics] when it comes to flavor complexities. In the Caribbean—and a lot of South America and Mexico—there’s a baseline of simple foods that are built with layers of flavor. That’s why a lot of my recipes can’t be whipped up quick.

You write that Diasporican isn’t strictly a Puerto Rican cookbook. Instead, you write lovingly about your neighborhood in Sacramento and about all of the ways that the ingredients and the different food cultures in California have influenced your cooking. Can you explain what you mean by “diasporican” and talk about a recipe that reflects that approach?

I didn’t want the “Purity Ricans,” which is what I call them, to go in with the misconception that the book was only going to be purely traditional Puerto Rican recipes, the way their grandmother used to make it. (And by the way, a lot of their grandmothers are terrible cooks.) That’s the disclaimer: I already warned you. This book gave me the permission to accept that I’m not one of them Puerto Ricans. I was trying my damnedest to prove that I was. I’m not and that’s OK. 

It allowed me to do more experimenting without apologizing because it’s my experience as a Puerto Rican growing up in California in the Central Valley, where there were a ton of Mien, Hmong, Lao and Cambodian people, especially when I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s. They were coming to the West out of the post-war trauma that they were going through.

Saying I’m a “diasporic” and from California allows me to do things like my Puerto Rican laab. That recipe was just me putting things together in my brain—the Lao family that I was living with [as a teenager] making papaya salad and laab, and noticing that a lot of the ingredients are really similar. Even though [Puerto Ricans] don’t use fish sauce or padaek, we do use a fresh herb base. That’s sofrito. I always add some at the end [of the cooking process] because it’s that wallop of flavor that I’m looking for. 

In Lao food, they use a mortar and pestle; we use a pilon. They mash the garlic; we mash the garlic. They put in the shallots, we put in the onions. Then goes in the basil and the lemongrass and the tomatoes. I was like, Goddamn, that looks so similar to Puerto Rican food. I wondered  if I could merge the two. 

So that laab dish is just another application of sofrito.