Regional Fare: Puerto Rican Tropical Sweets
Whenever I travel I like to return home with a few edible souvenirs so that I can relive my the experience even after the trip is over. Sometimes I'll even share my finds with friends at home, and sometimes I'm the lucky recipient.
If you're staying in San Juan at the Hotel El Convento, a 350-year-old convent that was turned into a luxury hotel 40+ years ago, you'll be greeted by a large bowl of individually wrapped candies in the lobby. On further inspection you'll see that many of these offerings are made of coconut or sesame seeds, and soon learn that they are traditional Puerto Rican sweets. My sister and her new husband recently returned from their honeymoon in Puerto Rico and brought back a big bag of those sweets, dulces surtidos, to share.
You can find inexpensive bags of these candies in any grocery store. An assortment might include dulce de coco (brown sugar coconut), cocopina (coconut pineapple), cremita coco (cream of coconut), ajonjoli (sesame seed), coco blanco (white coconut), and mampostial (chewy sesame coconut). Just one bite of any of these sweet treats, and you'll long to visit San Juan yourself. When's the next flight out?
--Tracy Schneider
CakeSpy on August 04, 2009 at 03:02 PM
LOVE this one. My parents live part time in PR so I am sending it on to them. They always bring me back candies!