A Judge’s Plate
Ah, you know us. What’s the most interesting part about any bit of current events? The edible in it.
Take Sonia Sotomayor, the New York appeals court judge who President Obama nominated to the Supreme Court earlier this week.
Sure, her judicial record is important. But while I was reading a New York Times story about her, I couldn’t help but notice that it mentioned some of her favorite foods of her childhood, raised by Puerto Rican parents in the Bronx in the 1950s and 60s. In a 2001 lecture at the University of California Berkley’s law school, she talked about her fond memories of rice, beans and pork at family gatherings, not to mention patitas de cerdo con garbanzos (pigs’ feet with beans) and la lengua y orejas de cuchifrito (pigs’ tongue and ears). It’s a strong reminder of what purpose food plays in our backgrounds.
Today, the article went on to say, she favors smoked sturgeon sandwiches (with onions, capers and Dijon mustard) and tuna fish and cottage cheese for lunch with her clerks.
I love it! It’s such a New York story—a Latina-tinged childhood, and an adult who likes smoked fish with a Russian-Jewish-New York background (New York is a big smoked fish town - think of lox). Sotomayor calls herself a “Nuyorican,” a born and bred New Yorker with Puerto Rican parents. You can see that heritage a little in her food tastes, too, right?
