Culinary History of Caja China and Delicious Recipe Ideas

There is apparently as much mystery surrounding the origins of the “Chinese box” as there is about how to use one for those unfamiliar with the toaster. Stories have been told about the roughly 150,000 Chinese workers who came to Cuba in the 1850s and who brought the style of cooking to the island, hence the term “Chinese box.” Research, however, indicates that there is no known record of the toast box dating that far back. In fact, there seems to have been relatively little mixing between Chinese and Cuban cuisines. So where did the box originate and where did the name “the Chinese box” come from?

According to food anthropologist Sidney Mintz, a more likely scenario is that the term “Chinese” or “Chinese” does not represent the country in this case, but is actually a common Hispanic term that describes something as exotic, mysterious, or intelligent. Using this interpretation, “the Chinese box” would be translated as “the smart box” instead of “the Chinese box”. This hypothesis is reinforced by the renowned Cuban chef Maricel Presilla of the Zafra restaurant in New Jersey when she states: “Cubans like to call anything unusual or intelligent Chinese. And this is true throughout the Caribbean. Almost any culture there, whether Cuban or Puerto Rican or Dominican, they have somewhere a kind of thing like this, a Chinese Box. ” (Sifton) Variations on the box can be found in various countries and have a variety of names. In Peru there is the “box china criollo”, in the Cuban community the “box asadora” and the “asador cubano”.

In the Cajun community of Louisiana it is known as a “Cajun microwave.” The reality is that all of these grill boxes are very similar in their cooking style, using the heat of the charcoal and the pressure of a closed grill box to cook large amounts of food in an incredibly short period of time. Not only is the cook time cut from eight hours or more for a large pig to just four, but the meat is incredibly tender. It is, in my opinion, the best kept secret in the American barbecue community today. You can buy one, along with its accessories, at http://www.shoplatintouch.com. Once you have one, you will wonder why it took so long.