Six Months Later, Tourists Haven't Returned to Puerto Rico
Recently, inside Restaurante Raíces in Old San Juan, chef Joshua Gutiérrez paced back and forth near the kitchen, while speaking on his cellphone. He had just gotten the bad news from one of his suppliers that no plátanos — plantains — would be available for purchase.
This news put Gutiérrez, 35, in a complicated situation: The restaurant’s star entrée is mofongo, a traditional Puerto Rican dish with a fried mashed plátano base accompanied by fish or meat, usually pork. Shortly after finishing the call, Gutiérrez took inventory of the rest of his supplies. He was missing some ingredients, and the ones he did have were mostly imported. It all hardly seemed real: a traditional Puerto Rican restaurant serving traditional Puerto Rico dishes with ingredients from Costa Rica or Colombia.
Meanwhile, the restaurant, decorated to resemble a small wooden house in the countryside, was only half full shortly after lunchtime. Of these people, about half were locals and half were tourists.
In the area in front of the restaurant, a few curious tourists watched the traditionally dressed waitstaff animatedly talking to patrons. The female servers wore long skirts with puffy-sleeved blouses, their heads wrapped in white handkerchiefs; the men wore black suspenders over their white shirts, and straw hats resembling those worn by Puerto Rican farmers in the nineteenth century.
Read more: https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/20/six-months-later-tourists-havent-returned-to-puerto-rico/