My Favorite Christmas Tradition Is Making My Abuela's Puerto Rican Pasteles

I thoroughly believe that the best Christmas traditions are those that combine delicious hometown flavors with family bonding time, and in my Abuela's Puerto Rican household, the epitome of such were her famous pasteles de guineo. These small meat pies — made with ingredients traditional to the Caribbean island such as green guineo (bananas) and a spice called annatto — are commonly made in bulk in the days before Christmas. At the end of the days-long cooking process, Puerto Rican pasteles are wrapped in banana leaves and secured with cooking twine in such a way that they resemble small, edible gifts. And as much as my cousins and I loved unraveling each individual "present" during and beyond December, the best part of our pasteles tradition was the actual act of coming together as a family to make them.

If you're unfamiliar with Puerto Rican pasteles, you may have initially envisioned a sweet treat since the Spanish word "pastel" translates to "pie" in English, and is often used in reference to dessert by many Spanish-speaking cultures. In Puerto Rico, however, pasteles' are far from sweet. These individual pies are savory, filled with meat, and are meticulously spiced from the sofrito-marinated pork filling to the annatto oil-infused banana masa around it. Puerto Rican pasteles are best explained as cousins to Mexican tamales in that they are both meat-filled masa pies wrapped in natural leaves, but the ingredients and spices used in pasteles differ entirely from those used in tamales.

For one, the masa in Puerto Rican pasteles is made from mashed green bananas (known as guineos) and root vegetables, such as pumpkin and yautía, or taro root. The slightly sweet and starchy vegetables used in pasteles are traditionally grated and mashed by hand, then seasoned with homemade annatto oil, pork broth, and adobo before being layered with slow-cooked pork, all atop a sheet of natural plantain leaves.

Puerto Rican pasteles originated from the island's enslaved African ancestors who transformed the limited supply of locally-grown vegetables and meat they were given into flavorful pockets of succulent pork and silky masa, all wrapped in local plantain leaves. This is just one of many dishes our African ancestors imparted on Puerto Rican culture and cuisine. Today, they are made in bulk over the holiday season, stored in freezers all over the world, and enjoyed year-round.

Because they take a conservative 8-10 hours to make from start to finish, the pasteles-making process is usually reserved for Christmastime as a way to gift loved ones with delicious food, and (in my household, at least) to recruit the help of family to wrap pasteles in an assembly line fashion. When it came to making pasteles in my Abuela's house, everyone had a specific task. One of my cousins would be tasked with brushing annatto oil on each plantain leaf, who would then pass it to the cousin in charge of pouring exactly ¼ cup of masa onto the oiled section of the leaf. The assembly line would eventually end with my Abuela as the official "Pastel Wrapper" and quality control manager. She would tie each pastel perfectly with twine, secure two in a pack, then stack them up until the ingredients ran out.

This year was my first year making them on my own, and while my wrapping skills still have a long way to go, it was so wonderful to take a bite of a freshly-boiled pastel and instantly be transported back to my Abuela's kitchen during Christmas.

Originally published 12/02/2022