Puerto Rico Food Collection

In Puerto Rico the day begins at the panadería. Pan sobao comes out of the oven soft and slightly sweet, a mallorca is dusted with powdered sugar, and café con leche is poured strong, the way the island has grown and roasted its coffee in the mountains for generations.

By mid-morning the counter is a meeting point — neighbours, workers, grandparents — and the conversation is as much a part of breakfast as the bread.

Almost everything starts with sofrito: culantro, ají dulce, garlic and peppers blended into the green base that gives Puerto Rican food its heartbeat. Plantains appear in every form — twice-fried as tostones, sweet as maduros, mashed with garlic and chicharrón into mofongo.

Arroz con gandules is the dish of pride, rice and pigeon peas cooked with sofrito and the pegao — the crisp layer at the bottom of the caldero that everyone wants.

On weekends the road to Guavate fills with families heading for lechón asado, pork roasted slowly over charcoal. Along the coast, evenings bring alcapurrias and bacalaítos from the kiosks at Piñones, eaten with salt still on your skin.

At Christmas the parranda moves from house to house with music, pasteles wrapped in banana leaf and coquito passed around in small glasses. In Puerto Rican families on the island and across the U.S. mainland, these are the dishes that bring everyone home.

The Maison Maps Puerto Rico collection gathers mofongo, tostones, pastelón, arroz con gandules, lechón and coquito into illustrated Puerto Rico food posters, aprons and blankets — Puerto Rican wall art and kitchen decor for every home where the island's table is still cooked.