Sancocho (1937)

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"Stop and smell the arugula."
--sign in the window of PRET, East 45th Street and Lexington Avenue

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SANCOCHO

  OED has "sancocho" from 1939 (in the SOUTH AMERICAN COOK BOOK, one of a great series of books by the Browns).  There are about 8,500 Google hits.
   Aaron Sanchez's LA COMIDA DEL BARRIO: LATIN-AMERICAN COOKING IN THE U.S.A. (2003) has many foods/drinks I've written about before, from "tacos" to "papusas" to "feijoada" to "chorizo" to "gorditas" to "sandwich cubano" to "moros y cristianos" to "tres leches" to "michelada."  Here's this one:

Pg. 42:  SANCOCHO (root vegetable stew)
   In the Latin culture, it is said of a person who has been under the sweltering sun that he is a _sancochado_--blistering hot, or "stewing"--and this aptly named one-pot dish is one of Colombia's national treasures.  Its identity comes from the interesting blend of different root vegetables and how each imparts a flavor and texture that enhances the end result.  I make this with beef most times, but feel free to try pork or chicken for some diversity, as the meat used varies from place to place.


PORTS OF THE SUN:
A GUIDE TO THE CARIBBEAN, BERMUDA, NASSAU, HAVANA AND PANAMA
by Eleanor Early
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company
1937

Pg. 24 (BERMUDA):  And White Horse Tavern on the (Pg. 25--ed.) corner, where they serve fish chowder made with rum and sherry.  This chowder originated two hundred years ago on Saint David's Island, and the people over there taught the chef at the Tavern how to make it, and the chef taught me.  (Long recipe follows--ed.)  Bermuda's national dish is cassava pie, which everybody eats at Christmas-time, but I had rather have the fish chowder any day.

Pg. 65 (FRENCH ISLANDS):  In the yard the women were cooking _feroce_ (ferocious), a dish of fried fish and white beans that is the daily fare of the people.

Pg. 102 (BRITISH ISLANDS):  Crab-backs are stuffed and highly seasoned land crabs, flavored with garlic and cooked in lard.  Crapauds--commonly called mountain chicken--are really frogs--very enormous frogs, and sweet.  They were formerly on all the islands, but the mongoose have exterminated them everywhere but in Dominica.

Pg. 116 (MORE BRITISH ISLANDS):  Falernum, made in Barbados, is better than the simple syrups you probably use for sweetening.  Falernum is made, I think, from sugar cane and spices.  (...)
   There is a brown flavoring, made from the sticky juice of the cassava and called cassarife, that is a savory addition to gravies and soups.  Cassarife is what makes pepper pot so good.  If properly cooked, a pepper pot will never spoil, and may even become an heirloom.

Pg. 130 (MORE BRITISH ISLANDS):  In the market of Saint George I saw people eating a poisonous-looking concoction of red and ptomaine-green, and was told that it was shaved ice, flavored with sweet syrups artfully colored.

Pg. 134 (MORE BRITISH ISLANDS):  There is _callaloo_, a kind of thick soup made of small green vegetables and spinach, flavored sometimes with meat, but mostly with crab.  _Callaloo_ is eaten only on Sunday if you follow the rules.  Then there is _pelau_, a savory dream of chicken with rice and red peppers.
  _Akra_ and _float_ are cooked and sold on the spot by native cooks.  Corn-meal dumplings are filled with seasoned meat, wrapped in a piece of banana leaf, and fried in deep fat.

Pg. 211 (BARRANQUILLA, CARTAGENA):  And on Sunday mornings they send their chauffeurs for _empanadas_, which are cakes of corn meal filled with chopped and seasoned meat, and fried in lard.  And they eat them in their fingers, and _love_ them--the richest ladies in South America!

Pg. 213:  Colombians have a national dish called _sancocha_, which they eat on festival days.  It is made of chicken and vegetables boiled together, and then thrown at people.  Everybody sits on the ground, with a banana leaf for a plate and a gourd for a soup bowl, and the cook tosses the _sancocha_ from the kettle to the banana leaves--and never misses.  The chicken and vegetables are eaten with the fingers, and the liquid is drunk from the gourds.  This, of course, is in the country, among the peasants.  Most Colombians have manners just as good as yours.

Pg. 262 (PANAMA):  On this balcony two fat ladies rocked and fanned themselves all day long, and it made such an impression on me that I stopped eating _sancocha_.  Most South American women have a great many children, and eat a great deal of _sancocha_, and get extremely fat.  Soon their husbands take mistresses (this is the national habit).  Then the fat ladies--who are usually gentle and amiable--sit on their balconies and rock.
  (I'd sue McDonald's for this--ed.)

Pg. 286 (HAVANA):  We drank quarts of _pina colado_, and ate _arroz con pollo_ three times a day.  We saw a sign that said _Hay Sandwiches_.  And in the street-cars it said _Jesus_.  On the Pasaje wine list were drinks called _cotels_, which is the Cuban way of saying cocktails.  And a specialty of the house was _Aristu_, which turned out to be Irish stew!  "_Hay_," we discovered, means "there are," or "we have."

Pg. 289 (HAVANA):  There is a bar at the airport, and the customs doctor bought me my first _Cuba Libre_, which is a drink that Cubans love, though I cannot tell you why.  It is made of Bacardi and Coca-Cola.  The Coca-Cola kills the Bacardi, which makes it silly if you happen to like Bacardi.

Pg. 304 (HAVANA):  Senor Berenguer submitted his standy-by, _Rio Cristal_.  And now all you have to do is find a passion fruit.  (Pg. 305--ed.)  Crush the pulpy part around the seeds and strain.  Add one part passion fruit, two parts white Bacardi, a bit of lime peel, and honey in the comb to sweeten.
   Hardly anyone know how ti mix a proper Bacardi cocktail, so I asked Senor Rafael Valiente, who is host at the famous bar, and he told me that you should take the juice of half a lime, half a teaspoon of granulated sugar, one and a half ounces of white Bacardi, mix thoroughly, and shake well with ice.