Mofon•GO stand at Smorgasburg(Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
FOOD IS NOT JUST ABOUT FOOD
It was 30°F and Manolo López was wearing a guayabera—a traditional Caribbean shirt made out of linen. Manolo forgot his coat as he was focused on nailing the presentation of Mofon•GO to the Smorgasburg selection committee. The concept was simple: mofongo (a smashed plantain bowl filled with meat) on the go. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. When he got the call that he was a finalist to join, he knew he needed backup.
“I can cook this, but no one was going to make it like mami”, Manolo recalls calling his mom and begging her to come to New York City so he could impress the judges. And her pollo guisado did the trick.
After getting accepted, Margarita Cruz came back to the city for another month to help with the launch of the first Puerto Rican stand at the largest weekly open-air food market in America.
Manolo credits Margarita for his culinary interest and skills. Not only did she make the best comida criolla, but she also encouraged her son to take cooking classes when he was a teen. This was a catalyst for a young Manolo who was still finding his way. The kitchen taught him discipline and a way to focus his passions. Once he moved to New York City, it became a way to connect with home.
Food is a window that Manolo uses to share Puerto Rican culture and history. Manolo invites his guests to honor the people and land of his place of birth by sharing stories that appeal to their emotions and information that leaves them reflecting beyond the dinner table.
What was Mofon•GO?
Nestled in the outskirts of Williamsburg, Brooklyn stood a 10’’x10’’ tent blasting Salsa music that could be identified by the minimalistic Pilón (a wooden mortar) icon. Which let everyone know, hay Mofongo.
Mofon•GO was a pop up restaurant that took many shapes and forms, most notably in Smorgasburg. The well-known outdoor market welcomes more than 60,000 people every weekend and for 4 years, Puerto Rican food was represented by Mofon•GO.
Mofon•GO’s innovative design, packaging and product quickly took them amongst the ranks on the outdoor market, making it one of the most popular stands in less than a year.
This led to pop-ups around New York . From the Intrepid Museum, to the Brooklyn Museum, from Coney Island, to El Museo del Barrio, and Liberty Fairs—Mofon•GO started popping up in every borough and fed many including Residente (René Pérez), Ruben Blades, and Spike Lee. After being recognized as one of NY’s best street food vendors they ventured out to Japan to do their first international pop up.
Q&A
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I had bootstrapped for about 2 years, working my full time job as a designer and weekends as a stylist at J.Crew. After getting the news that I was accepted at Smorgasburg, I needed an extra $10k to start and didn’t know how to raise it in such short notice. My footwear obsession finally paid off. One morning I was looking at my apartment wall, which was adorned by hundreds of pairs of sneakers, and I grabbed my most coveted pairs. My grail, the Nike Air Yeezy 1 & 2 and I thought to myself: I could either look fly in these or use them to realize my dream. I then took the most exclusive sneakers and listed them on Ebay and Flight Club and raised the money I needed in less than 2 weeks. The wall that was once filled with shoes was now a blank canvas and with that I was able to start Mofon•GO. To this day, a lot of my friends say I’m crazy for selling all those shoes, but if I had to do it all over again, I would.
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After going through the hurricane, my relationship with food has changed. I couldn’t bear to do course meals where no one was mindful of how the food was prepared, where those ingredients were farmed and harvested and the back story that made them unique. So, I shifted to family style, designing what I call Caribbean Mezze, where tiny plates cover the entire table and are placed strategically, so you have to ask your neighbor to pass the pasteles or longaniza. Every course is crafted with a story and each table has a facilitator that leads conversations of change throughout the meal. From 30 to 150 people gatherings, we use this time to educate on Puerto Rican/Latin American history, food and current events in a way that is palatable for people who are not Latinx or don’t identify as such.
context: History of Mofongo?
Mofon•GO became popular during the height of Puerto Rico’s financial crisis. As more islanders moved to New York, Mofon•GO stood as a reminder that no matter where we go, honoring our ancestors, leads us to success.
El Burén: Clay plancha used to cook cassava.
Source: latinamericanstudies.org
Mashing the mofongo by hand is a tribute to two Puerto Rican lineages: the Arawak Taíno and our West-African ancestors. The Taínos are the indegineous people of Puerto Rico. (Although, they called the island Borikén—which is why many Puerto Ricans refer to themselves as boricuas.) They were the first to use a version of a pilón to make cassava bread.
Antoshananarivo, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Yet, it was the Afro-Puerto Ricans that developed Puerto Rico’s well-known plantain dishes. The contributions of Afro-PuertoRicans and Afro-Latinx folks to the Caribbean and Latin America is undeniable.
However, they’re oftentimes invisibilized from mainstream media and narratives. In the U.S., it’s often overlooked that millions of Africans were brought to Latin America via the Atlantic slave trade.
With them, they brought culinary knowledge, rhythms, and religious traditions that are still celebrated and practiced today. In Puerto Rico, mofongo and sancocho are only a few of the foods that originated from our African ancestors. Around the world, the Caribbean is known for the beats we inherited. Dancehall and reggaeton wouldn’t have existed without the rhythms of bomba and calypso which were developed by the African diaspora.
A process of blanqueamiento or whitening, promoted by both Spain and the United States have made Puerto Ricans deny their African and Taíno ancestry. But this is changing.
In the 2000 Census, 80.5% of people in Puerto Rico identified as white. That number decreased dramatically in the 2020 census where 17.1% of people in Puerto Rico identified themselves as white.
This significant shift in the past 20 years shows how we are affirming our multicultural identity and expanding our consciousness of what it means to be Puerto Rican.
As Mofon•GO became a household name, Puerto Rico’s former governor announced that the island had an outstanding debt that was unpayable. As neither a country or state, there wasn’t an option to claim bankruptcy. While most media outlets presented a debt-ridden, hopeless Puerto Rico— they also spoke about the food stand making waves in Dumbo. It was a stark contrast: the tragedy and the creativity. Unfortunately, the former seemed to dominate the headlines.
But Manolo wasn’t alone. Mofon•GO gave him the opportunity to meet people that were creating spaces that celebrated our culture. People in Puerto Rico such as Leslie Cofresí and Xavier Pacheco wanted to collaborate and create a bridge with New York City. And that is how Cosa Nuestra was born.