Our Little Porto Rican CousinWade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
General
Our Little Porto Rican Cousin
Wade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
Children -- Puerto Rico -- Juvenile literature
Dolores is taught to embroider and to play a little on the guitar, so
her mother thinks her daughter is quite accomplished. Besides, both
Manuel and his sister are very graceful dancers and can sing well.
These are quite important studies, for wherever one goes in Porto Rico,
there he will find music and dancing.
At half-past eleven the books are closed, and the children join their
parents for the first regular meal of the day. This is the real
breakfast.
It is served in the large, low dining-room, where for the first time we
see the children's grown-up sister, Teresa. She is a lovely young lady
of sixteen, slight and graceful. She has the same black eyes as Manuel
and Dolores, soft and beautiful.
She wears no stockings, but her feet are encased in dainty blue kid
slippers. They are embroidered with pearl beads, and, no doubt, came
from Paris.
An ugly-looking woman takes her place beside Teresa at the table. This
is her "duenna." It is her duty to go everywhere with the young girl.
It would not be considered at all proper for Teresa to go driving, or
even walking, alone. It would not do for her to go shopping to the
town only three miles away unless her duenna were with her; and as
for a party or any evening entertainment whatever, if Teresa were to
go without her parents or this same duenna, every one in the country
around would be terribly shocked.
But now all are busy eating the breakfast the coloured waiter is
serving. First, there is a nice omelet, cooked in olive oil. Then
come pineapple jam, fish fried a delicate brown, fried bananas, fried
chicken, and a salad made of many kinds of vegetables. We must not
forget to mention the apricots stewed in honey, nor the tea steeped
with the leaves of lemon verbena. It has a delicious odour, and
Manuel's father and mother are very fond of it.
There is no butter to eat on the rolls, but the fact is, almost all
the butter in Porto Rico comes in tin cans from other countries. On
account of the hot climate, it is often rancid, so it is seldom used in
Manuel's home. The cooking is done with olive oil. Nearly everything is
fried, instead of being broiled or roasted, and no one feels the need
of butter.
Manuel and Dolores, like some other boys and girls we know, are very
fond of sweet things, so they eat a great deal of the cooked fruits on
the table. But they also seem to like the salad very much, even though
it is so hot with Cayenne pepper as to burn the mouth of any one not
used to it. But the children are accustomed to highly spiced dishes.
Our cooking would seem tasteless to them. Perhaps it is the hot climate
all the year round that makes it necessary to have strongly flavoured
foods to excite the appetite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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