He also wrote about the island’s culinary history for 80 Grados, an online publication, where he recently used the Spanish cliché “as simple as rice and beans” as a jumping-off point to discuss the history of the dish and explain why making it properly can actually be complicated.
He once wrote a piece on the history of food trucks in Puerto Rico, explaining how self-proclaimed “foodies” and readily available online culinary history contributed to their growth on the island.
His books and research have been used to find solutions to Puerto Rico’s food insecurity, which stems from the island’s reliance on imported products. He worked on a project to help identify native and naturalized ingredients in order to preserve and propagate them. Chefs use his work on Puerto Rican ingredients to curate their menus and to have their staffs explain the dishes.
He not only taught the Puerto Rican culinary history certification program; he also helped his former students create projects that would help lead the island to food independence. And he had strong relationships with restaurateurs, chefs, mom-and-pop shops, farmers and home cooks.
“There was not another scholar or mentor who did that kind of educational, more pedagogical work,” said Mónica Ocasio Vega, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin who adopted him as a mentor.
As a chef, Maria Mercedes Grubb, a restaurant consultant and a former owner of the Gallo Negro restaurant in San Juan, was always curious about the history of the food she ate. Mr. Ortíz Cuadra, she said, “seemed to be the only person who had those answers.”
Ms. Grubb said that Mr. Ortíz Cuadra’s work was a reminder for her to reconnect with her roots and to ask questions of her family, like how her mother in the Dominican Republic cooked without an oven, or how she stored food without a refrigerator. Her knowledge, stemming from his research, allowed her to learn how to make a dish and then gave her the confidence to put her own spin on it.
He was, she said, Puerto Rico’s living version of Larousse Gastronomique, the culinary encyclopedia.
“I didn’t know anybody who had that amount of wealth of knowledge about the history of our food,” Ms. Grubb said. She was, she said, recently left wondering, “What didn’t we get from him, and who’s going to carry that torch?”
Susan Beachy and Von Diaz contributed research.
