Cachupa di Cabo Verde
Didn’t think we’d find authentic Cape Verdean food in NYC, did you? You figured that even though there are more Cape Verdeans in the US than there are in Cape Verde, but that most of them live in New England and the only Cape Verdean restaurants in this part of the country are in Boston, that we didn’t stand a chance. Well, consider yourselves wrong, because not only did we get incredible authentic Cape Verdean food prepared by an authentic Cape Verdean chef, we got authentic Cape Verdean food prepared by the chef of the Cape Verdean Ambassador to the UN!
Our search for Cape Verdean food started with the usual Google and Chowhound searches, and when those failed we reverted to the old phone call to the Permanent UN Mission of the Republic of Cape Verde to the United Nations (have we mentioned how many times this has saved us?). The secretary informed me that there used to be a Cape Verdean restaurant in New York, but it had closed some years back. When I asked if she knew of any cooks or chefs in the area who might be able to prepare authentic Cape Verdean food for three curious eaters, she took my number and said she’d call back. Later that week, she called to say that she had found someone, and that person would call me, but that her English wasn’t so good. I asked if it would help if she talked to a Portuguese speaker, and she sounded relieved and said that would be much better. She gave me the number, told me the woman’s name was Elena Maria, and that she was the Ambassador’s chef!
Luckily I have a lovely friend from Brazil here (who also happens to be my boss’s wife) who immediately agreed to call Elena Maria and explain what we needed: Cape Verdean food for three, including cachupa (the national dish) and something else delicious (of the chef’s choosing), which we would pick up at her convenience, for a reasonable price. That very evening we made the call, and everything was arranged for Sunday afternoon, two days later. They haggled over the price a bit (initially quoted at $100), my boss and I in the background interpreting the Portuguese numbers and making signals with our hands to make it lower. But then she said she would save the receipts for the ingredients and we could just pay her back. Sounded fair to me. We were set to pick everything up at her place, the UN Mission itself.
On Sunday, Noquar stressed that we needed to drive to pick up the food, or he wasn’t coming. I was a little reluctant at first to take the Nomad-mobile into mid-town Manhattan (one time I did that and a passenger opening a cab door on the street side took my side view mirror clean off), but I quickly gave in. And boy am I glad I did! We arrived at the Mission on a cold and slightly icy afternoon, and parked about 6 blocks away — the first spot we saw. A woman answered the door, invited us to step inside and sit in the waiting area, and explained that Elena Maria would be down in a few minutes. Shortly after, the same woman re-appeared with an enormous foil tray of food, and behind her came the chef herself, with two more of these giant serving trays, the kind you see at a church picnic or office holiday party. The three of us looked at each other and probably simultaneously said, “We need to get the car!” (There was absolutely no way on earth we would have got that food home on the subway). Noquar volunteered to run down the street and pull it up in front (blessedly free of cars because all space on that side of the block was reserved for diplomatic parking). Meanwhile, Supereg and I settled the bill and chatted with the sweet and smiling chef about the food. The bill, by the way, came to $32 (cost of food) and that was all she wanted. She didn’t want to charge us for the cooking, because she said we were nice people, and that she didn’t mind because it was so cold that day, she didn’t want to go out anyway. How nice is that!? We of course insisted on giving her more money than that for all her effort, which she gracefully accepted.
She had made us two dishes: one of fried rice with fresh tuna and two big trays of cachupa. She also supplied us with a little bottle of her homemade hot sauce. She explained (in her limited English) that the cachupa contained meat, beans, corn, other vegetables, sausage, and more, but you could make it with fish or chicken or different vegetables. And she eats it everyday.
Noquar pulled up a few short minutes later, and we carefully loaded the hot and heavy food trays into the car, and drove home to central Brooklyn with our teeth clenched, terrified that one of the potholes on the FDR or the BQE would cause a massive spillage of all the food that was filling the car with wonderful aromas. After a quick detour to pick up a bottle of red wine (Elena Maria’s recommendation to accompany the food), we got home and dug in.
The food was fantastic. Cachupa is a thick stew and hearty stew, and though it certainly felt nothing outside like it must the tropical country that this dish comes from, it warmed and nourished our chilled bones. A closer look at the receipts that we took home revealed that the dish contained pork spare ribs, white and gold hominy (like corn, but different), cassava, kidney and white beans, chorizo, and squash — a near perfect combination of ingredients. No wonder they eat this everyday! The rice was simpler, but still delicious. And with a dash of the special hot sauce on top, paired with a glass of bold Spanish grenache, we were whisked away to a tropical beach on an island in the Atlantic ocean, listening to the a local singer serenade us with a folksong. When we came to, we found that it was just the Grammys, we were in New York, and it was the middle of a cold winter. But the food was still excellent, so we got seconds (or in Noquar’s case, thirds and fourths).
Many thanks to Lygia, Howard, and Elena Maria for making this Confined Nomad adventure possible!
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Hi, superb post.
I will add this blog to my favorites, it is great.
Anyone knows a good club/lounge that plays cape verdean music.
in nyc area