As we saw in previous segments of this multipart column, early in the colonial era, plantains displaced cassava, becoming the quintessential "black food" of the Caribbean, and not just for those of African descent but for Caribbean peoples of all races and across the socioeconomic spectrum. Today, I invite you — my treat — to savor other "black foods" and take a first bite at the second course of our banquet: a Cuban sandwich.

OTHER 'BLACK FOODS'

Sociologist Jose Luis Gonzalez, author of the insightful and acclaimed "Puerto Rico: The Four-Storeyed Country," challenged the prevailing representation of Puerto Rican culture that privileged Spanish cultural contributions over those of Afro-Puerto Ricans, who he claimed built Puerto Rico's first — and thus, foundational — story. "When people speak today for example of 'jibaro (peasant) food,'" Gonzalez wrote, "what they really mean is 'black food': plantains, rice, codfish, etc." That's also the case in traditional Cuban and Dominican cuisine.

Rice, the primary starch of Hispanic Caribbean cuisine, figured prominently in the slaves' diet. When accompanied by beans (legumes of Mesoamerican origin), together they produce what nutritionists call a "complete protein" rich in iron and containing several essential amino acids. While variations of the rice-and-beans combination are consumed around the globe, they sit on the front burners of Latin American and Caribbean stoves, especially in what some historians call "Plantation America."

If we follow the arch of Plantation America, starting in Louisiana, we find Creole red beans and rice; further east, Hoppin' John (Carolina peas and rice). Several variations developed in Cuba: rice with black beans in the West; with kidney beans in the East; and variations of rice and beans mixed and cooked together, i.e., moros y cristianos, or simply moros (with black beans), and congris or congri (with kidney beans). Said to have come from Haiti, congris is a dish of captivating etymology: "cong" (from Congo beans) and "ris" (from riz, French for rice — sounds like "rrrrih"). Further east, we taste the Dominican version of congris (called moro) made with pigeon peas. Its Puerto Rican counterpart, arroz con gandules, is perhaps the island's most emblematic dish. In Jamaica and other English-speaking West Indies, "rice and peas" are the staple food. And to conclude the journey, at the southern end of Plantation America we find the slavery-derived Brazilian feijoada (a bean and meat stew) served over rice.

The two primary sources of animal proteins in the slave diet, dried codfish and dried beef (tasajo), also found their way into traditional Cuban and Puerto Rican cuisine. They happen to be among my favorite foods. When I was a student at the University of Puerto Rico, I used to crash the faculty club dining hall on Fridays because they served codfish dishes such as serenata. By then, codfish, which had been a food for poor Puerto Ricans, had become prohibitively expensive, especially for an undergraduate student, but the faculty club was generously subsidized. Tasajo served with rice and fried plantains is my favorite dish. To enjoy it, however, I must drive 238 miles to el Versailles or other Miami Cuban restaurants, whose menus include ajiaco and a variety of "black dishes": funche (yellow cornmeal stew), split pea pottage and plantain fufu with chunks of pork.

SECOND COURSE: THE CUBAN SANDWICH

While an ajiaco by itself is a full meal, I have offered it in a cup rather than a bowl as a first course to leave space for a Cuban sandwich, which by all accounts constitutes a full meal.

At the risk of trivializing Fernando Ortiz's use of the ajiaco as metaphor for Cuba's history and culture, I propose the Cuban sandwich as yet another manifestation of Cuban transculturation, another example of the Cuban culture's ability to transmutate by incorporating new cultural ingredients, and as metaphor for Tampa and Ybor City, where tens of thousands of Cuban exiles settled beginning in the 1880s.

Like the ajiaco, the Cuban sandwich combines ingredients from different food cultures, and like the former's ingredients, the latter's components retain their specific flavors and attributes while igniting a multilayered explosion of mutually fortified aromas, flavors, textures and temperatures.

But unlike the ajiaco, with its undisputed Cuban birth certificate, the Cuban sandwich is a transnational (trans-Florida-Straits) creation, with original recipes of Cuban extraction (the "mixto," or mixed. sandwich) imported by exiled Cuban workers to Florida, where they were transculturated with new layers of ingredients from the pantries and delicatessens of German, Jewish and Italian fellow immigrants.

Our Cuban meal continues in Part 5.

Luis Martinez-Fernandez is author of "Key to the New World: A History of Early Colonial Cuba." Readers can reach him at LMF_Column@yahoo.com. To find out more about Luis Martinez-Fernandez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com.

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