Man: The response by the U.S. to Hurricane Maria was really slow and really poor.

One of the major impacts of hurricane Maria is that their electrical service was disrupted in some cases for almost a year.

Woman: We got to work really quickly, and we started...[continues in Spanish] and just, you know, reaching out to your neighbors, see what you need.

"How can I help?"

Man: When it comes to the great resiliency, somehow to deal with catastrophe, you know?

It's something that we naturally engage in maybe as part of our DNA.

It's a great part of who we are.

Man 2: What if there was another disaster?

And I can help.

I'm helping.

I believe if you can cook and you have the tools to do it and people are hungry, it's in you.

That's your hospitality.

I believe anybody in my shoes would have done the same.

So if that happens again, we're here.

[Man speaking Spanish] Jose Enrique: It was just an ongoing thing the whole day.

Eating there was just something different.

She made my mom's wedding cake and her wedding dress.

It's that type of woman, you know, who's like, "Wow!"

And you're like, "Oh, God.

How does she have those many skills?"

Wilo: He's dedicating time to Puerto Rico's cuisine, and, you know, his angle, you know, on reviving some of these elements that-- become obscure, you know, and they're parts of the culture, but they're not in the everyday menus.

Not there because they're complicated preparations or perhaps, you know, they're not popular, so they're a little harder to market, you know, for the public.

And I think he did lots of those things, actually.

Very, very efficiently so.

Well, I met Jose Enrique because his father was my neighbor, right across or the house right across from ours.

We both attended the same culinary school, and lots of people recognize, you know, Jose Enrique's ability to improvise, a trait that every chef should have.

Jose Enrique: I actually grew up with bananas... Wilo: It's something that I think speaks of, you know, resiliency and the creativity required to live in the tropics.

Jose Enrique: This is, like, the place where I started surfing.

Wilo: Right.

Jose Enrique: Yeah.

Wilo: I'll be honest.

I never surfed, but this is certainly the place where I always came for alcapurrias or fritters.

No doubt about it.

Jose Enrique: So, I don't know.

You want to go grab a bite?

Wilo: That sounds terrific.

Jose Enrique: Let's do it.

Wilo: Cocina criolla is about lots of flavors, intensity, cilantro, sofrito, salty-sweet.

[Conversation continues in Spanish] Wilo: In its origins, as I make piononos, right, it's a ripe plantain that lengthwise has been sliced into like 1/4-inch slice, fried, and then it's been kind of like, twisted to form kind of like a circle.

It's held with a toothpick in its origins.

And it's filled with ground beef, and then it's actually dipped in a batter-- a flour, water, and seasoning batter.

You dip it in there, and then you fry it.

[Music, whistling on soundtrack] Jose Enrique: Right now in Condado, I'm doing a bacalaito.

But I had a customer come and say, "Oh, you know, we call it ciego," which is kind of saying, like, it's blind, because what he meant was that, you know, there's not enough salted cod in there.

And I was like, "You know what?

You're completely right."

And it's just, I was raised like--I was raised like that, you know, so that's how I make it.

Wilo: And it has become such an expensive commodity that, you know, probably that's what prompted a little less bacalao.

So you get--you know, a little bacalao gives you a lot of flavor because of this concentration.

Jose Enrique: I'm working on it.

Wilo: Right.

Right.

Jose Enrique: But I want to do a dish where it's just like, a whole, like, a chunk of bacalao, fresh cod.

This is it, like, "OK, that didn't have any.

Now here's a lot of bacalao in there," you know?

Because I'm working on it.

Wilo: I can tell your creativity and, you know, great food is a work in progress.

Jose Enrique: Uh-huh.

Salud.

Wilo: Salud.

We are all about plantains.

So it's all about green plantains, ripe plantains, middle, in-between plantains, so we can make mofongo or we can make piononos, or we can make tostones, or we can make aranitas.

And the list goes on and on and on of everything you can do with a plantain in any of its states of ripeness.

Jose Enrique: The plantains got the three stages, right?

It's green, and that's what you use when you make tostones, which is basically, you cut it in rounds, and you deep fry it.

Then you smash it and you throw it back into the oil at a higher temperature, and then you get that crisp, beautiful tostone.

So, so you have all these things that you can make out of the plantain, you know?

It's like, catch it when it's unripe.

Don't worry about if it gets ripe because you'll use it also.

Jose Enrique: Pedro, Pedro, ALCor.

We worked together for, like, five years.

This guy has such a unique energy.

For any human, when you meet people like that, you need 'em close.

You need to get them close because it's like, "Wow.

Where does this guy come from?"

The longaniza that I use here from Pedro is flavors that I designed.

I was like, "So I want orange skin in there, and I want other things that's just not the regular flavor."

So he designed that and, you know, it ends up being just a little unique for me, for me to serve in the restaurant.

[Pedro speaking Spanish] Pepe Alvarez: We only use Puerto Rican fruits for our fruit-infused rum.

For tresclavos, we use only fresh fruits from local farmers, so we're helping the local agriculture and helping the local small guy.

Wilo: Now, there's a whole new wave of people flavoring those, so then you're going to have, like, passionfruit pitorro, or you have, like, all these flavors: coconut pitorro.

And one of the things that really surprises me is the fact that it is illegal, you know, to actually sell moonshine, right, or sell pitorro.

But it is readily available all over the place.

So you go to the countryside and there's pitorro advertised just right there.

You know, it's not like they're hiding in a back room or anything like that, you know?

It's, like, right there.

Jose Enrique: What was interesting about Ron Pepon and Pepe Alvarez, the fact that he's got the heirloom varieties in it.

You know, here from Puerto Rico, and been here forever.

And it's like he's been able to weed out which grow best and which are best for his product.

It's beautiful.

You know, what he's doing there is all passion, that quality of sugarcane juice and making that into the rum gives it a whole different-- you know, a whole different flavor.

Pepe: All right.

So, we get the... Jose Enrique: Quesolo.

Pepe: the play room.

This is where we do all the tinkering and all the trials.

And for each product we develop, we make 20, 30 tests of different profiles.

We usually end up picking the first, which is crazy.

Salud.

[Glasses clink] So this is a two-year-old Ron Pepon.

It's been aged two years in American oak barrels.

Jose Enrique: Beautiful.

I guess I think of it as gold because it's, you know, it's like--I don't know--the three kings bringing me this thing.

You know what I'm saying?

[Continues in Spanish] Ed Morales: You know, Puerto Rico has one of the worst GDP-to-GNP ratios of any country or territory in the world.

Only about 70% of the value that's created in Puerto Rico actually stays in Puerto Rico, whereas, you know, most countries are in the 90s.

So Pepe's efforts are an attempt to localize the value that's created by, you know, cultivation in Puerto Rico.

[Rooster crowing] Woman: It's so good.

Woman: I have no idea, but it's so good.

Jose Enrique: You know, Daniella, I feel like right now, she's doing exactly what I, for me, as a restauranteur or, like, a cook, wants.

She's basically gotten to a place where you have all these other farmers that are coming together, and then she's figured out a way to get the transportation down here.

I think it started off with arugula--those thick, heavy leaves, like, peppery.

You know, it's got punch in its flavor.

And she brought those in.

I'm like, "Ohh, that's it."

You know, like the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, you know.

"Leave it.

It's beautiful."

So from there on, she started bringing other things, and that's how it grew, bringing in that quality, which I was searching for.

And I'm like, that's the greens I want.

Daniella: He was probably the only chef anywhere who would actually serve a big, big salad on your plate and actually, like, it wasn't just a garnish like in other places.

I feel that our ingredients are very much a reflection of who we are and where we come from.

So we have a lot of Indigenous ingredients, like yuca and yautia or pineapples, piñas, they're native to Puerto Rico.

But then now you have a lot of European influences and other plants that weren't necessarily here when our Indians were here.

And we're kind of like this melting pot of those different cultures.

And regenerative agriculture will actually take a lot of influences from Indigenous communities.

We actually replicate a lot of what the Taínos used to do in their conucos.

They didn't have agro chemicals to depend on.

So they really had to work with nature and emulating nature, permaculture, where everything has more than one function.

So all of these practices of companion planting and terracing and harmonizing the three-dimensionality of a farm and having it work for you in different ways in order to attract a pollenizer or attract birds, who are part of your pest control, like, all of these things are things that Indigenous communities used to do.

The fact that we've been a colony for 500 years has affected the history of farming.

Prices of everything in Puerto Rico, and not just agricultural products but really everything, that gets imported is this act called The Jones Act.

Ed: Well, the Jones Maritime Act limits commercial trade with Puerto Rico to boats that were manufactured in the United States and have a high percentage of crew members who are U.S. citizens.

And so that limits Puerto Rico's ability to have any sort of trade or economic import-export relationship with other countries besides the U.S. And it also set up a very convenient trade situation for the U.S. because it was a kind of a dry run for the North American Free Trade Agreement in which all the goods that were shipped to the U.S. did not have any tariffs on them and the U.S. is able to dump a lot of its excess production on Puerto Rican consumers.

Daniella: If you control people's food and what they eat and also how they make a living, you control their lives.

Daniella: Jose Enrique is the type of chef who doesn't necessarily have a fixed menu.

So he'll really work with what's in season and with what's available and really highlight the product.

Jose Enrique: My cooking is, give me the product, and I'm going to try and not mess it up.

And stemming from that is the fact that, "Well, what came in today?

This is the best thing that came in today, so that's what's going to go on the menu."

So that's where it comes from.

It's like, Why is it always changing?

"Because I'm always putting what's best."

We had mero a la parrilla.

Right?

Grouper, which was over a mashed batata, and then it has over the top the avocado, papaya, onions, peppers, tomatoes, lime juice.

That's just been a staple.

That's just always been on the menu.

The beef stew, which is just short rib deboned, cleaned out.

That meat just holds up together so nicely.

Chayote salad.

It's one of those things that I put down and I eat, and I can't stop eating it.

It's got local honey and rice wine vinegar, olive oil.

And then that mix is just cashews at the end and cilantro.

It's just so fresh, and it's clean.

It's beautiful.

I've got farmers that reach out to me, and I, you know, you pick certain people and you trust them blindly because...that's their same interest, you know, so they're going to--they're so proud about what they give you.

So you're like, What do you have?

Bring it.

You know, I don't even want to know.

Let it be a surprise.

You make your life a little bit harder because you have to look for it, more deliveries, work it out, work the deals out.

It's not like somebody who puts anything on a truck and brings it to your restaurant.

You know, so that is a little harder.

But once the product is here, it makes your life easier because, pfft, you know?

I don't even have to touch it.

It's so good.

So there's that balance.

Daniella: Hurricane Maria was tough for everyone.

Like, we had planted out all of our beds, and everything was just starting to grow for the new season.

And when I came back, it was just all gone, like vaporized, but it was really encouraging to see that our agro-ecological practices had really, really helped us bounce back really quickly.

So even though the plants themselves had totally vaporized because of the hurricane, everything else was perfect.

Like, the beds were there, zero erosion.

We didn't have to do anything.

We just had to open up new holes and plant again.

Jose Enrique: So during Maria, there was a complete power loss.

It was kind of hard to get food.

What's laying around?

Roots and tubers.

How can I feed the most people fast and give them just, you know, something substantial, even proteins?

That's what I did.

But then afterwards, it actually became more like, "This guy just made sancocho, and it's off the charts.

It's really good."

Probably every land has a type of sancocho.

It's a soup where you actually, you cut whatever's available, whether its roots and tubers, and you put whatever meat you have around--it might be chicken, it might be some of your dry cured sausage, it might be some of your fresh sausage.

If you have neighbors, you have people coming in, everybody will bring a little bit of something to that soup.

It's almost like, you know, when you eat something that's nostalgic that brings you to that place your grandma or your neighbor or that little stand next to you that you would always just feel that when you ate that, it was just like, "Ahh.

OK." You know, it ended up being more like, "Wow, I'm actually comforting people with this."

Daniella: It's actually not every day or ever that farmers get to sit down at the same table with a chef.

I think those are conversations that need to happen more often.

Jose Enrique: Came out beautiful... Wilo: Sí.

Just beautiful.

Jose Enrique: In Puerto Rico, you always have the hot sauce.

Like, the heat is on the side.

Wilo: On the side.

That is correct.

Jose Enrique: But when you're going through the Antillas, like the Antillos, those hot--the food will be hot.

Daniella: Right.

Jose Enrique: So for us being a colony--like a Spanish colony, and it's like the Spanish were so--we were like, "No.

Well, then you know what?

We're going to do something like with it, so we'll put it on the side."

Pepe: Yeah, agriculture is very difficult.

I really admire the generation of the last 10 years.

We've seen a revival of agriculture from the generations of my son's age, around 30 years old to 40 years old.

It's been we didn't have that in the past.

So...they deserve a lot of credit, a lot of merit.

They're bringing agriculture back.

Daniela: We need to make this a viable business for young farmers to actually go out and produce more because that's what we need, no?

Wilo: We're tremendous consumers, you know, as Puerto Ricans.

You know, as it is, I hear the behemoth of Amazon is doing, like, a daily flight to Puerto Rico of how much stuff is being ordered.

Daniella: But that's not by mistake.

This is very much a calculated process, is that this is very much us being a colony by definition, a colony--of resource extraction.

So we are consumers by design, that this is not something that just happened.

We have been put in this situation after generations and generations of being a colony.

We've been a colony for what, 500 years now?

Pedro: Just.

Daniella: How much food is produced in Puerto Rico?

10-15%.

Jose Enrique: I think we're higher than Hawaii, which is crazy.

Hawaii imports, like, a lot, and we're, like, even higher than them.

But I think it'll change, you know.

And it's like, what you're doing and what we want to strive for--I said it before.

I think that's what it is, you know?

Daniella: Sí.

I think it will change as soon as there is more support for this change to happen.

For me, that was one of the most beautiful things to see from this hurricane, you know?

Really see people coming together.

Forget about whatever helps are coming or not coming or when they're coming.

We need to do this ourselves, and we need to do it now.

Pedro: We need to be aware of each other's needs.

What do you need?

What do you need?

What do you need?

What do you need?

Pepe: Puerto Rico, to me and to all of us, is the most beautiful place in the world, and I would never leave this little island for anywhere in the universe.

And I've traveled the world.

Daniella: Salud to that.

Pepe: Puerto Rico is unique.

Salud.

Daniella: Salud to that.

Yes.