From Loíza to Yauco’s Mountainous Area: Two Instances of Fugitive Food Practices in Puerto Rico

This essay explores fugitivity in Puerto Rican culinary practices, centering the cooks María Dolores “Lula” de Jesús and Viña “la Gran Pastelera” Hernández. By analyzing two visual texts—Eat, Drink, Share Puerto Rico’s episode “El Burén de Lula” and Hernández’s recipe video for pasteles dough—it examines how nostalgia and a longing for “lost” culinary traditions are shaped by notions of space, race, and gender. Drawing on Pedro Lebrón’s concept of cimarronería analéctica, this essay argues that these practices represent a fugitive relationship to food, escaping Eurocentric modernity and affirming a distinct world.