Alright, so let me tell you about this whole Islas Margarita thing I got myself into. It wasn’t about planning a vacation, not really. I had this itch, you see, to try and understand a place beyond the glossy travel brochures. And Islas Margarita, for some reason, it just stuck in my head.
My Big Idea (or so I thought)
I decided I wanted to find the most authentic, down-to-earth recipe for empanadas de cazón from the island. Sounds simple, right? Just google it. Ha! That’s where the fun began. I wasn’t looking for some fancy chef’s version. I wanted the kind of recipe that gets passed down, maybe with a secret ingredient someone’s grandma swore by. The real deal.
So, I started digging. My first step was hitting up all the usual food blogs and recipe sites. Most of what I found felt… generic. Like it was written by someone who’d never even been near the Caribbean. Lots of “add a pinch of this, a dash of that,” but no soul, you know?
Then I moved on to forums, trying to find discussions in Spanish, hoping to catch some local chatter. My Spanish is, let’s say, a work in progress. I spent hours with online translators, piecing together conversations, looking for clues. It was slow going. I found a few threads, some heated debates even, about the “right” way to make the filling or the dough. That was more like it!
- I sifted through countless pages.
- I messaged a few folks who seemed knowledgeable, with mixed results. Some ignored me, some were super helpful.
- I even tried to find very old, digitized local cookbooks, which was a dead end mostly.
The biggest challenge was filtering out the noise. Everyone had an opinion, and every opinion was different. Some said you absolutely had to use fresh baby shark, others said canned was fine if you knew how to treat it. Onions? Peppers? Achiote for color? It was a culinary battlefield.
Getting My Hands Dirty
After weeks of this online detective work, I had a collection of notes, scribbled ideas, and about five conflicting “authentic” recipes. So, what did I do? I decided to try and combine what seemed like the most common threads. I went out and bought the ingredients I could find – finding actual cazón (dogfish shark) where I live was an adventure in itself. Let me tell you, my local fishmonger looked at me like I had three heads.
My kitchen, for a weekend, became an empanada laboratory. I kneaded dough, I simmered fillings. My first batch? Edible. Barely. The dough was too tough. The filling a bit bland. But I kept at it. I adjusted seasonings, played with the dough recipe. I must have made about fifty empanadas over those few days. My family was sick of the sight of them by the end.
Did I find THE one, true, authentic recipe? Probably not. I reckon there isn’t just one. It’s one of those things that every family does a bit differently. But what I did get was a real appreciation for the process, for the local culture behind a simple dish. It wasn’t just about eating an empanada anymore; it was about the stories and the tradition I’d glimpsed.
So yeah, that was my Islas Margarita “practice.” It wasn’t about sunbathing. It was about trying to connect with something real, even if it was just through a plate of food. And honestly, even though I never got a definitive answer, the journey of trying to find it was pretty satisfying in its own weird way. Made me realize that sometimes, the digging is the best part.
