The Taste Of Goya

I can remember the first time I tried hot sauce. It was a hot summer day. My friend Rosa and I were eating corn tortillas on my front porch. I was eleven and had yet to experience the warm sensation on my tongue. My mother had brought out a glass bottle of dark green Goya hot sauce. We poured it in the middle of our tortillas. As my friend ate it, I was a bit hesitant. I was not one for trying new things. Rosa, on the other hand, must have been used to it because she gobbled it up with out anything to drink. So I took my first bite. I choked, and I choked bad. After lots of milk I was hooked! Ah, had I found my Hispanic roots in hot sauce? Maybe a little to deep of a story for finding myself, trust me I know. But I became the chicana who put it on everything! I mean everything. My pizza, my tacos, and my chorizo and eggs. At one time, I had a Goya hot sauce bottle in my purse. I can’t believe I just admitted that.

My point is Goya was my first. My first taste of seriously delicious flavor, that is!

Goya was founded in 1936 by a man named Don Prudencico Unanue and his wife Carolina. As one of the largest Hispanic owned food companies in the United States, their products range from Goya spices, tomato sauce, lemon juice, coconut water, pina colada mix, black beans, ketchup, steak sauce, olive oil, tropical fruit beverages, and a few of my favorites: Goya Café (coffee) and rice pudding. Barely touching the surface of all the varieties of food made by Goya, I want to share with you one of my favorite recipes.

Coconut Rice Pudding

Ingredients:

2 cups Goya white rice
1 Goya brown sugar stick
1 lemon peel
1 orange peel
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp. of vanilla
4 tbsp. of sugar
¼ cup of raisins
1 can of Goya coconut milk
1 can of condensed milk
1 can of evaporated milk
3 cups milk
Powdered cinnamon

Directions:

1 1/4 cups water in pot on high heat. Add rice, sugar, cinnamon stick, lemon and orange peels and brown sugar stick. Mix well until rice is cooked. Add fresh milk, Goya coconut milk, condensed milk, evaporated milk and raisins. Mix well. Lower heat. Sprinkle cinnamon, serve.

To find other recipes like this one, and or other products visit their web site at www.goya.com.