Empanada Lady combines Black and Puerto Rican culture for new food experiences

The colder temperature months, which she affectionately refers to as “coquito period,” are Elisa Milan’s preferred time of 12 months for small business.

The culinary entrepreneur known as the ”Empanada Lady” has captivated a substantial adhering to in Baltimore with her spins on Puerto Rican staples this sort of as empanadas and coquito, a creamy coconut consume ordinarily served chilly in the course of the winter season months. She has some 11,800 followers on Instagram, and her food stuff nearly normally sells out at situations.

“It’s surely occupied,” Milan stated from the kitchen area of her eatery at Motor Property, a blended-use space that combines food ideas, arts and celebration areas on the border of the Station North and Outdated Goucher neighborhoods. “People are celebrating and congregating. I sell bottles of coquito by the gallons.”

Milan, an American who has a Puerto Rican mom and a Black father, has tapped into her blended heritage and designed a burgeoning culinary empire that displays both of those cultures with an undeniable Baltimore aptitude for dishes and drinks. The final result is that she has captivated a massive Black clientele through the mid-Atlantic region. Many have hardly ever had versions of these dishes mainly because Baltimore has not had a significant Puerto Rican local community.

Cooking also can help Milan, 31, bridge the cultural disconnect that she has felt throughout lifetime as a man or woman of Black and Latina heritage.

Born in California, she lived in the Bronx till she was 6 several years aged and then grew up in Baltimore.

“I didn’t mature up with a large amount of Puerto Rican friends. I had Latin homegirls. But not a lot of Puerto Ricans. My Puerto Rican practical experience was from my Puerto Rican spouse and children. My father, who is Black, was not around. There was a disconnect. My Black pals crammed that,” she reported. “Now, I’m equipped to provide them each [Black and Puerto Rican people] with each other. I’m proud. I’m joyful. It feels aligned with my journey. It feels like it is so much far more than the foods. It’s the society, the neighborhood.”

Jessica van Dop DeJesus, author of the 2019 book “The Eating Traveler Guideline to Puerto Rico,” loves what Milan is carrying out in Baltimore.

“This is a fantastic way to expose Puerto Rican delicacies to Maryland,” mentioned van Dop DeJesus, who is primarily based in Brussels. “I never think in the word genuine since I think every single cuisine adapts to its environment and ingredients that are accessible in that sector. I enjoy when cooks play with common substances and flavors to generate a thing new and exciting.”

American Black and Puerto Rican cultures are ripe for cultural fusion because of their shared ancestry and historical past in the United States, exactly where they have historically labored collectively in metropolitan areas these as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

“It’s honest to say that in the Northeast, these teams gravitated towards just about every other due to the fact back again then — in the course of the ‘50s and ‘60s — you had to,” reported van Dop DeJesus, who grew up in Puerto Rico and Rochester, New York.

She recalled that her mom went to Rochester in her early teenagers and labored with the Black group in the ‘60s. That shut doing the job marriage resulted in friendships that led to an incorporation of lifestyle. For illustration, her mother’s dish of neck bones with macaroni and sofrito seasoning arose from the mixing of cultures.

Milan suspects that if she weren’t cooking, she would however be in the health-related field she previously worked with licensing out-of-condition nurses through the Maryland Board of Nursing.

“They did not renew my agreement in 2019 and that’s when I went total time as the Empanada Lady,” she described.

Milan began the company as a dare in 2016, while she was performing as an assistant at a now-defunct yoga studio in downtown Baltimore.

“The owner bet me I couldn’t make revenue cooking foodstuff at a perform event. I brought my grandmother’s empanadas. I offered out, but I broke even. I knew I was in it just after that.”

Milan initially began her business enterprise as Elisa’s Empanadas, but she changed the name to The Empanada Lady just after a few decades.

“No one particular ever called it that,” she recalled. “They would just say, ‘The Empanada Girl.’ I just leaned in and acknowledged it.”

Milan produced enthusiasts out of her generally Black buyers, numerous of whom experienced by no means experienced empanadas ahead of.

Sheri Andrews, 37, has been taking in Milan’s empanadas considering that 2015. Milan’s empanadas are distinct from the types that Andrews utilised to consume from corner suppliers in her indigenous New Jersey.

“It’s pretty nostalgic. But hers are unique. The dough is different, and the filling is distinctive. She does not skimp on the filling at all. She’s supplying you your money’s worth for guaranteed,” claimed the Owings Mills resident. “You can taste the diverse cultures through the spices. Every single tradition has an empanada, but her spices set it apart. It’s just delightful to me.”

Morgan Bryson, 32, has been a longtime close friend of Milan’s considering the fact that substantial college. She was 1st launched to empanadas when Milan’s mother had to be nudged to make the dish for the then-adolescents.

“It would make my day when she would make it. It was a thing you did not arrive across normally,” she recalled.

Milan has taken the empanadas to the future level, in accordance to Bryson, who life in Randallstown.

“She does not complain about making them,” Bryson reported with a chuckle.

And Bryson can promptly place the distinctions involving Milan’s empanadas and all those she has eaten elsewhere.

“I certainly style the big difference. Elisa’s empanadas never taste like a pastry. I have gotten accustomed to her empanadas so a lot that if I had someone else’s, I would say, ‘They’re not accomplishing it right.’”

Milan altered the measurement of her grandmother’s empanadas, which have been lesser. She also stuffed hers with additional meat filling and chunkier pieces of veggies, and gave them a a bit spicier flavor profile. Her mother and grandmother only produced traditional beef empanadas, but she can make these as nicely as empanadas with hen, pork, salmon or shrimp.

“When I very first started out, no one understood anything at all about empanadas,” she recalled, including that she at first started cooking out of the kitchen of her then-Cockeysville apartment. “Being in Baltimore, I’m a large amount of people’s 1st knowledge with the meals and culture.”

Milan characteristics the bigger parts of her empanadas and other dishes to the Black tradition of serving large, elaborate meals.

“It’s the abundance,” she mentioned. “We are fruitful. It displays up in the generosity of our portion sizing. We feel about how we want to take in. If you shell out $40 to $50, you want to have some food for afterwards.”

Milan has also collaborated with Black chef Ericka Loyal to make a seafood salad that retains consumers stumped about what is in the distinctive seasoning mix that coats the hearty, cold dish composed of bounce lump crab meat, shrimp and pasta.

“It gets to be a pleasurable guessing game,” Milan mentioned. “We’re also generous with the part size — just like the empanada. You’re receiving a great deal for what you shell out for.”

Milan’s “nada sauce,” which she serves with her empanadas, is also a nod to mixing Black and Puerto Rican cuisines. Usually, empanadas are served with a mayo ketchup. But Milan amps up her sauce by adding chili powder and lime in addition to her holy trinity of Puerto Rican seasonings: sofrito, sazon and adobo.

“That’s a excellent case in point of the fusion,” Milan said. “Empanadas are not typically spicy. It is a way to increase the spice on the side.”

The nada sauce has gotten so popular, Milan now sells it by the bottle, in addition to serving it with her stuffed empanadas.

When it will come to coquito, the Puerto Rican equal of eggnog, Milan totally flips the script and adds alcohols and liquors that are well-known in Black Baltimore communities this sort of as Hennessy, a variety of makes of Cognac and Crown Royal vanilla. She also has nonalcoholic and vegan versions of the consume. Historically, coquito is made with white rum, she defined. National Coquito Day was on Wednesday.

Though Milan has place her blended spin on a lot of Puerto Rican foods, one detail that she will not do — at her family’s ask for — is provide coquito “out of time.” Most users of her relatives are even great with educating workforce how to use altered relatives recipes when cooking for the general public.

“They are satisfied for me. They are rooting for me. My grandmother is declaring, ‘You are sharing recipes.’ She’s happy of me, but she’s tight about it. But my grandmother [who lives in the Bronx] is nevertheless adapting,” Milan said with a giggle. “I explain to her: ‘Mama, they simply cannot do it like me. It’s mine.’ She’s coming all over.”

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