We Fed an Island Read online

  Dedication

  To the unknown heroes: the chefs,

  the volunteers, the military, the first

  responders, and all the forgotten people

  around the world who put their lives

  aside to feed others in need.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Foreword by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Luis A. Miranda, Jr.

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Landfall

  Chapter 2: Feed the World

  Chapter 3: Discovery

  Chapter 4: Big Water

  Chapter 5: In the Arena

  Chapter 6: Ready to Eat

  Chapter 7: Seeing Red

  Chapter 8: Transitions

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Photos Section

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Foreword

  THREE DAYS. THAT’S HOW LONG IT TOOK FROM THE TIME HURRICANE Maria hit Puerto Rico to when we knew our family was still alive thanks to a Facebook picture a cousin had posted. Five days to hear if our family was fine (they were) and to hear if the house our family had built years ago had survived (it did not).

  It’s a horrible feeling—waiting and not knowing. You feel helpless. You worry. You imagine the worst. You feel like there is nothing in your skill set that can help your loved ones who are so far away. We got relief from that worry in only five days. We were fortunate. It was a much longer wait for many others.

  Now imagine a different kind of waiting and not knowing. Waiting without power. Waiting for food. Waiting for running water. Not knowing if your family one town over is alive. Not knowing if the roads are clear or if it’s safe to go in search of supplies. Not knowing if the hospitals will continue to function. Not knowing if anyone from the mainland is on their way with relief or if they even have a strategy in place to help you. Not knowing if your entire island has been forgotten.

  What you are about to read is the story of someone who helped people in a time of crisis. Someone who did not wait for paperwork or permits while people starved. Someone who saw that without nourishment, no one would have the strength to rebuild and recover in the long days, months, and years ahead.

  Chef José Andrés was one of the first people to arrive on the island for humanitarian purposes after Maria hit. He faced obstacle after obstacle as he tried—and succeeded—in setting up what became the biggest kitchen with “real” food feeding Puerto Ricans for two months after the storm. His first day of operations, Chef José Andrés and Chefs for Puerto Rico, a cadre of volunteer chefs from the island, prepared 1,000 meals to feed Puerto Ricans. By the second day, they doubled their output. By three months, 3 million meals were prepared and served throughout the island.

  José Andrés’s mission in Puerto Rico seemed simple: develop a meal program for Puerto Ricans-in-need, with delicious food that was cooked and delivered on the same day, using local products to stimulate the local economy. His clarity of purpose put him at odds with almost every large institution involved in relief efforts on the island. He did not want to hear about bidding processes, meetings, or excuses about why scaling up could not be done. And he did not take NO for an answer. We were amazed at what he was accomplishing in the aftermath of the storm and could not wait to get down there and lend a hand.

  Upon arriving in Puerto Rico, the first thing we noticed was a once-green country that now looked as if it had been set on fire: all vegetation was gone or dead. We could see the devastation, the FEMA blue tarps as makeshift roofs everywhere, the darkness descending as the sun set. The sea of desperation and need was best summarized by the mayor of San Juan’s outcry, “We are dying here” in a plea to the federal government for help. Amongst all this, Chef José Andrés had created a beacon of sustenance, an oasis in every place from where they were cooking, including the Choliseo.

  When we arrived in Puerto Rico, the first stop was to join the assembly line at Chef José Andrés’s kitchen. As we walked in we were overcome by the joy of the volunteers, by the aroma of Puerto Rican cuisine, by the enormity of the effort. As sandwich-making beginners our instructions were simple—lots of mayo, cheese, and ham. Though the sandwiches seemed simple to many, for Chef José Andrés, they were magical: “I have created many avant-garde dishes as a chef but there are few meals I’m prouder of than the hundreds of thousands of sandwiches we made in Puerto Rico.”

  For more experienced workers, the cooking menu had expanded beyond sandwiches to include sancocho, a stew including a variety of meats, corn, and vegetables. As a way to deliver large quantities of calories, nutrition, and comfort to many storm survivors at a time, it’s hard to beat sancocho. As José says, “When you eat sancocho, you think of your grandmother and it puts a smile on your face.” And of course, arroz y habichuelas, arroz con pollo, paella, added to a menu that, though created at a time of crisis, tasted and looked as if it came from your mother’s kitchen.

  What Chef José Andrés and his team were able to achieve in a short time seems unbelievable—producing tens of thousands of fresh meals each day for Puerto Ricans in need—but what is so important to remember is that it was possible. Despite the challenges, Chef Andrés made it happen. There is so much more we can be doing collectively and we have to expect better from our government. It is a national embarrassment that a year later there are areas of Puerto Rico that have never had power restored and vast areas of the island experience intermittent blackouts. The people of Puerto Rico cannot be forgotten in this ongoing time of need. We are thankful to Chef Andrés for all he has done and all he continues to do. We are proud of the many who volunteered, donated, and raised their voices. We will forever be in debt to those, like Chef José Andrés, who put their lives on hold to help Puerto Rico.

  This book is the Chef’s story, a remarkable one. We’ll let him tell it.

  Siempre,

  Luis A. Miranda, Jr. and Lin-Manuel Miranda

  Prologue

  THE FIRST TIME I TRAVELED TO THE CARIBBEAN WAS BY SHIP. JUST LIKE the early colonial explorers, I sailed into Santo Domingo and marveled at its beauty and geography. I was a young man, serving briefly in the Spanish navy on the Juan Sebastián de Elcano, a majestic, four-masted topsail. The third-largest tall ship in the world, it was named after the Spanish explorer who was the captain of Magellan’s fleet, and the first man to circumnavigate the world. Although I had no idea at the time, this was the start of my love affair with the Caribbean and with America.

  So a few years later, when I was drifting between jobs for several months, I could only say yes to the chance to work in Puerto Rico and to return to this magical sea. I was a young chef, learning my trade shortly before settling down in Washington, D.C., to start my restaurants and my family. But I will never forget the sights and sounds of those weeks cooking at La Casona in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan: the spirit of the salsa, the nightly call of the coquí frogs, the lush green of the tropical leaves.

  Many decades later, as an established chef with many restaurants to my name, I returned to revive one of the jewels of the island’s glamorous heyday in the 1950s and 1960s: the magical place known as Dorado Beach. My restaurant, Mi Casa, is part of the former home of the visionary American who preserved the natural beauty of this northern shore, Clara Livingston. She sold her plantation to Laurance Rockefeller, the environmentalist, who carefully developed it as one of his RockResorts, turning it into a refuge for Hollywood stars and American presidents. I was honored to be part of its revival, and my work there created lifelong friendships with many of the island’s chefs, its entrepreneurs and the everyday Puerto Ricans who embody its creative and we
lcoming spirit.

  So when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in late September 2017, it felt like destiny was driving me back to the place where it all began for me. It was as if two timelines were meeting at the same point in the warm Caribbean Sea: my past and my present, this island’s Spanish roots and its American identity. The echoes of its history merged with the urgent voices of today’s crisis. I felt I belonged here because my ancestors were not so different from the settlers who fought and farmed and cooked here for so many centuries before I arrived. Puerto Rico is the perfect mix of Spanish and American. It’s the perfect mix of my culture. There are African Americans here. They have the blood of my people and the blood of the Africans who were forced to come here.

  How could I not be here?

  AS PEOPLE SANG ALONG TO “DESPACITO” THROUGH THE SUMMER OF 2017, how many of them understood that Luis Fonsi’s hit was born in this American-Spanish corner of the Caribbean? If you were going to create a song that represented the perfect blend of cultures to break through the language barrier, a song that would garner the most views ever on YouTube, it would be right here in Puerto Rico. And when the hurricanes landed just a few weeks after the end of summer vacation, how many of those “Despacito” fans had any idea the islanders were American citizens just like them?

  These islands are not just tourist destinations or hurricane targets. They are the first places the original colonists exploited and reshaped in their own image. They bear the scars of their abuse and neglect to this day. We cannot value Puerto Rico simply for its crops or the national security advantage it offers, and then ignore its inhabitants when they need our investment to break the cycle of poverty or to recover from nature’s fury.

  To understand our responsibilities, we need first to understand our history here. That includes the unique contribution this part of the world has played in our American success. After all, it was a hurricane in 1772 that brought Alexander Hamilton from nearby St. Croix to New York, where he would change the course of this nation and the world. Then just seventeen years old, working as a clerk for a business on the island that traded with America, Hamilton penned a letter to his father that was so well written that a group of wealthy islanders raised the money to send him away for his education.1 His letter was a plea for compassion and disaster relief. “O ye who revel in affluence,” he wrote, “see the afflictions of humanity and bestow your superfluity to ease them. Say not, we have suffered also, and thence withhold your compassion. What are your sufferings compared to those? Ye have still more than enough left. Act wisely. Succour the miserable and lay up a treasure in Heaven.”2

  It was clear to everyone on Puerto Rico that the president himself knew nothing of America’s history on this island before the hurricane struck. When Donald Trump mocked the pronunciation of the island’s name, he recalled a time when Americans ruled without regard to its identity. “We love Puerto Rico,” he told a crowd of supporters at the White House for National Hispanic Heritage Month, barely two weeks after the hurricane. “Puerto Rico,” he repeated, emphasizing the Spanish accent once again. “And we also love Porto Rico,” he added, laughing at his own joke.3

  Our response to a natural disaster has never depended on a person’s accent or politics. We may be Republicans or Democrats—or apolitical, for that matter—but we are fundamentally all Americans. This country has a long and proud tradition of taking care of Americans, and non-Americans, in their moment of need.

  THERE’S SOMETHING FUNDAMENTAL ABOUT FOOD; ABOUT PREPARING, cooking and eating together. It’s what binds us; it’s how we build community. Eating isn’t functional. Food relief shouldn’t be either. Whether I am cooking for Washingtonians or refugees, my job as a chef is the same: to feed the many. Whether I am creating an avant-garde meal that deconstructs your idea of a familiar meal, or a giant pot of rice and chicken that fills your belly, I believe in the transformational power of cooking.

  A plate of food is much more than food. It sends a message that someone far away cares about you; that you are not on your own. It’s a beacon of hope that maybe somewhere, something good is happening. It’s the hope that America will become America again. That is what a plate of food is. It’s a message from every man and woman on my team saying that we care, that we haven’t forgotten, and it allows those in despair to have a little bit more patience, for one more day.

  As I developed my vision for a new model of food relief, I learned a profound lesson from my mentor Robert Egger, who is America’s leading advocate on food issues. “Too often,” he said, “charity is about the redemption of the giver, not the liberation of the receiver.” I do believe that food relief should help liberate the receiver, and that far too often, it has been defined and delivered to redeem the giver. We need to build a new model of disaster relief and food aid that understands the needs and desires of the receiver, and we need to do that right now.

  We achieved something extraordinary in Puerto Rico, preparing more than 3 million meals as a small nonprofit, while the federal government and the giant charities struggled to get anything done. We overcame blocked roads and collapsed bridges, political opposition and bureaucratic red tape, supply bottlenecks and cash crunches. It was hot, sweaty, exhausting work. But it was also life-changing and inspiring, channeling our love to do something as simple as this: to feed the people.

  Although each disaster is different and each one is complex, the priorities are simple. There is no recovery to manage, and no citizens to govern, if we cannot get water and food to the people. And yet, if you ask around—and believe me, I did—there is nobody, and no single organization, in charge of feeding the people. The experts tell me that everyone is in charge, but what I have seen is that means nobody is in charge. Food relief is not just a question of results and accountability. It is a moral necessity. As Tom Joad says in Steinbeck’s classic from the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath, “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.”

  This is a story of our fight so hungry people could eat. We didn’t feed them as much as we wanted. But we were there, even though we were never supposed to be.

  Chapter 1

  Landfall

  MARIA EXPLODED TWO DAYS BEFORE SHE ARRIVED IN PUERTO RICO.

  Over the course of just twenty-four hours, her winds doubled in speed from 80 to 160 miles per hour. The next day, she ripped through the island of Dominica as a Category Five hurricane: the first on record to do so. She weakened a little as she ripped the roofs off almost every building, tore out almost every electrical and telephone pole, stripped the leaves off almost every tree, crushed the banana crops and killed the livestock. No one was spared, not even the island’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit. “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding,” he posted on Facebook, just before he was rescued from his official residence.1

  Shortly before sunrise the next day, Maria landed as a Category Four hurricane on the southeast coast of Puerto Rico. Her center was 50 to 60 miles across, or about half the length of the main island, and her winds blew as fast as 155 miles per hour. She slashed and tore westward on a diagonal path across the beaches and mountains, the villages and the cities, the farms and the luxury apartments. Maria took her time in devastating anything exposed to the elements, lumbering along at just 10 miles an hour. She snapped apart huge wind turbines, plucked up the electric grid and tossed aside solar panels. She silenced the cell phone towers, uprooted the old telephone poles, and flicked over weather radar and satellite dishes. She clawed out the forests on the hillsides, and left only the naked trunks of the trees she spared. She heaved the sea into low-lying homes, and forced high, raging floods through mountain ravines. She destroyed the coffee farms, decimated the dairy herds and demolished the greenhouses. She darkened the hospitals and soaked the wards with rainwater. What her sister Irma had weakened with a glancing blow, less than two weeks earlier, Maria finished off with a direct hit.

  For the next two days,
stunned Puerto Ricans struggled to survive the onslaught of catastrophic rain and flooding. They rescued their neighbors and gathered together their food and clean water. They began to dig their way out: heaping household debris into piles on the streets, cutting paths through fallen trees to open roads and driveways, carefully treading around or moving the wires and cables that now lay on the ground. As they began to clear out, the morgues began to fill up. At first the bodies were those of the direct victims of the winds and floods. But soon, with most of the hospitals dark and damp, they were of the elderly and the sick who died at home, or in senior homes or at the stricken medical centers. News organizations estimated the number of dead at more than a thousand, but nobody knew for sure. At the Institute of Forensic Sciences in San Juan, they would need eleven refrigerated trailers to hold all the bodies.2

  The day after Maria, Donald Trump was under no illusion how catastrophic the damage was. “Puerto Rico was absolutely obliterated,” he told reporters after a meeting at the United Nations. “Puerto Rico got hit with winds. They say they have never seen winds like this anywhere. It got hit as a Five—Category Five storm—which just literally never happens. So Puerto Rico is in very, very, very tough shape. Their electrical grid is destroyed. It wasn’t in good shape to start off with, but their electrical grid is totally destroyed. And so many other things. So we’re starting the process now and we’ll work with the governor and the people of Puerto Rico.

  “So Puerto Rico will start the process . . . We’re going to start it with great gusto. But it’s in very, very, very perilous shape,” he concluded. “Very sad what happened to Puerto Rico.”3

  That night, Trump flew to New Jersey to spend the long weekend at his golf club. He and his aides didn’t mention Puerto Rico in public again, but they found the time for a campaign trip to Alabama. While at the golf club, Trump held a meeting with several of his cabinet officials, including his Homeland Security secretary. But the topic was his Muslim travel ban, not the hurricane. Trump’s staff would not say if he spoke to anyone about Puerto Rico through the four-day weekend. But it was clear from his Twitter activity that he was focused on at least four issues: attacking NFL players for their protests during the national anthem, attacking Senator John McCain for his vote against repealing Obamacare, attacking the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and attacking the news media.4