Wilo Benet and his True Puerto Rican Flavors

New book of Puerto Rican recipes part of chef’s plan to get island name out in international gastronomic world.

Por Elsa Fernandez Miralles.

Before cooking and chefs became an in thing (The Cooking Channel, Top Chef, Iron Chef, etc.) Wilo Benet was a curi­ous Puerto Rican teenager who observed how when Christmas time arrived his grandmothers engaged in a kind of a ritual-where neither men nor children were allowed in the kitchen-to produce a substantial quantity of pasteles for the long holiday season ahead.

The ritual, the smells, the flavors always stayed in his mind as did his mother's delicious rice and beans with bistec encebollado (fried steak with onions) among other Puerto Rican dishes that were regularly served at home. Not to mention chicharrones con pan (fried pork skins with Puerto Rican bread) that he bought from vendors in the streets whenever he visited Bayamón.

At that time he was not considering or even imagining he would become one of Puerto Rico's top chefs, much less an author of cook books. Benet published his first book, commis­sioned by Rones de Puerto Rico, but that was a limited edition for customers of that industry. So when he felt that it was time for his next book he knew it had to be about Puerto Rican cuisine. For a while he flirted with different ideas, like making some type of fusion. "But there are so many fusion styles of cuisine already that I realized that if I wanted to make a difference, if I wanted our cuisine to excel, it had to be based on authentic and real recipes that we, as Puerto Ricans, cook in our homes," said Benet, whose company Museum Restau­rant 'Group includes Pikayo and Paya restau­rants, a premier catering service and now the book "Puerto Rico True Flavors."

More than 100 authentic recipes are compiled in this book. Most of them are family recipes', from his grandmothers, his mother and even his recollection of what he ate at the school cafete­ria. "My mother never cooked jamonilla guisada over white rice at home but I liked it so much at school that I had to include it in this book. There are other recipes that I cannot point out who cooked them first but which are cooked regularly in almost any Puerto Rican home and are part of our current diet. There are two. recipes that are very near to my heart: the arroz can salchichas (sausages with rice) from my maternal grandmother and the jam6n can pñia (baked ham with pineapple) from my paternal grandmother," said the charismatic chef.

The reason for initially writing the book in English was his desire to launch Puerto Rican cuisine internationally. "If we want to partici­pate in the new global gastronomic wave we have to do it now because this is the right moment and all the favorable conditions are out there. A few weeks ago, for the opening of the movie "EI Cantante," I served the guests with recipes from this book. And it was a suc­cess, J.Lo, specially liked my version of chicharrones con pan and Marc (Anthony) said he liked them all," revealed Benet.
A Culinary Institute of America graduate, Benet was introduced to the cooking world by accident. After taking some courses in photo­graphy, he entered the industry as a dishwasher. "I got to help with little things like peeling shrimps or slicing vegetables. And it was the manual aspect of the business that attracted me," recognizes the restaurateur. After graduat­ing, Benet worked for restaurants in New York and Boston. From 1988 to 1990 he came back to the island as chef at La Fortaleza.

Pikayo was his definite jump to stardom, first in Old San Juan and Condado and since 2001 at the Puerto Rico Muscum of Art. Then he opened Paya, a more casual concept of a restaurant, in Guaynabo. And for the last year he has been working intensely on "Puerto Rico True Flavors." Since he is a team leader he rec­ognizes there were three key people who helped him launch this book. "There is Viviana Padial, my recipe editor. We cooked and she taped every recipe and later we discussed it to make it totally understandable and easy to make for our readers. Then there is Jose Soto, the photographer, who worked very well with the concept I had in mind and took 5,000 pic­tures from which we picked 100. And finally there is Edgardo Jimenez, the designer of the project and of all my works. If there is another project like this I will definitively use them again," revealed Benet.

The book is being translated into Spanish and there are plans to launch this version during November for the Christmas season. The Eng­lish version is already available in Borders. Now that the book is out, Benet has an aggres­sive marketing plan ahead. He has already participated in Book Expo America in New York, the most important book exposition in the continental U.S., and there are a series of mainland presentations, both on radio and TV, coming up in the near future.