Sweet Potato Pudding — Mami’s Recipe, Made While I Waited for Her Voice

Maria hit Puerto Rico on September 20th. Category 4. Winds of 155 miles per hour. The island was destroyed.

I cannot reach Mami. I cannot reach Ana. The phone lines are dead. The cell towers are down. The power grid is gone — not damaged, GONE. There is no communication. There is no information. There is CNN footage of devastation — roofs ripped off, trees snapped like fingers, roads underwater, entire neighborhoods flattened — and somewhere in that footage is Bayamon, and somewhere in Bayamon is Hato Tejas, and somewhere in Hato Tejas is a concrete block house with an eighty-year-old woman inside it and I do not know if the woman is alive.

It has been five days. Five days of silence. Five days of calling every number I have — Mami cell, Ana cell, Marisol house, Julio in San Juan — and getting nothing. Five days of staring at my phone like it owes me something. Five days of not sleeping, not eating, standing in my kitchen at 4 AM with the lights on because darkness feels like giving up and I refuse to give up.

Eduardo holds me at night. He holds me and I shake. I physically shake, the way you shake when the cold is inside you, when the cold is not temperature but terror, and no amount of blankets or arms or love can reach the place where the cold lives. He says nothing. He holds me. He is enough. He is not enough. Nothing is enough when your mother is missing.

The children call every day. Miguel Jr. calls twice. Rosa calls in tears. David calls from Brooklyn and his voice breaks and I can hear him trying to be strong and failing, the way I am trying to be strong and failing. Sofia sits with me on the couch and does not go to class because she will not leave me alone and I should tell her to go but I cannot because having her next to me is the only thing that feels like breathing.

I have not cooked. I have not touched the stove. The kitchen is dark. The pots are empty. Eduardo has been ordering food — takeout, the thing I never allow, the thing I have mocked for twenty-nine years — and I eat because he puts food in front of me and I eat mechanically, the way machines eat fuel, because my body needs it and my heart has nothing to do with my body right now. My heart is in Bayamon. My heart is under a roof that may or may not exist anymore. My heart is with Mami.

Please, mi amor. Please. If you pray, pray for the island. If you cook, cook for the island. If you love someone far away, call them now. Do not wait. The silence is the worst thing. The silence is worse than the storm. The silence is the place where fear grows without limits, and I am drowning in it. Five days. No word. Please.

On the sixth night, Sofia led me by the hand into the kitchen and turned on the light. She did not say anything. She just stood there with me until I opened the cabinet and took down the bag of batatas I had bought two weeks before the storm, and I started to cook Mami’s sweet potato pudding — the one she makes every November, the one that fills her concrete block house in Hato Tejas with a smell like cinnamon and coconut and every good thing. I do not know if she is okay. I still do not know. But my hands needed to do the thing her hands would do, and if I could not be in that kitchen with her, I could bring her kitchen here — into mine, into the light, into the only act of hope I had left to offer.

Sweet Potato Pudding (Budín de Batata)

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 lbs sweet potatoes (about 3 medium), peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 1 cup full-fat coconut milk
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 tablespoon dark rum (optional, but Mami always used it)
• Butter or nonstick spray for greasing the pan

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish generously with butter or nonstick spray and set aside.
2. Cook the sweet potatoes. Place the sweet potato chunks in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a steady simmer. Cook until completely tender when pierced with a fork, about 18 to 22 minutes. Drain thoroughly.
3. Mash until smooth. Return the drained sweet potatoes to the warm pot. Mash vigorously with a potato masher or pass through a ricer until no lumps remain. You want a completely smooth base — lumps will affect the final texture.
4. Mix the batter. Add the sugar, beaten eggs, coconut milk, melted butter, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and rum if using. Stir everything together with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until fully combined and the mixture looks uniform in color and consistency.
5. Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and spread it into an even layer. Bake on the center rack for 50 to 55 minutes, until the top is set and deep golden brown at the edges, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool before serving. Let the pudding rest at room temperature for at least 20 minutes before cutting. It can be served warm, at room temperature, or cold from the refrigerator — it is good every way. Leftovers keep tightly covered in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 44g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 115mg