MIAMI (By Elizabeth Baier, Sun Sentinel)December 24,
2005 — Come
tonight's Noche Buena, or "Good Night" celebration of the birth of
Jesus, many Internet-savvy South Florida Hispanics will have scoured
cyberspace for long-lost recipes and favorite holiday tunes.
But have you ever thought of surfing the Web for a lechón and a
roasting box large enough to cook all 75 pounds of that pig?
Or having shipped overnight frozen hallacas, stuffed cornmeal dough
wrapped in banana leaves, and pan de jamón, ham bread -- two of the
main Christmas dinner dishes in Venezuela?
Technology is making it easier for Hispanics to buy items online not easily
found at mainstream shops.
Gustavo Arango of Fort Lauderdale is among the Noche Buena
cyber-enthusiasts.
Arango had seen La Caja China -- a wooden roasting box with an aluminum lid
and barrel-like handles -- at a friend's barbecue in Miami two year's ago.
Inside was a ruby-colored, 50-pound pig that had taken just under four hours
to roast to a crisp. He had never seen the roasting box sold in a store and
decided to buy one online, bypassing a trip to the distribution center in
Northwest Miami-Dade.
"I got [the roasting box] in the mail and assembled it a few days later,"
said Arango, who also has used the Internet this year to download
traditional holiday songs from his hometown of Medellín, Colombia. "It was
much easier ordering it on the Internet."
Web sites dedicated to all things Noche Buena are finding a niche
with immigrant enclaves in South Florida and throughout the United States,
according to Roberto Guerra, president of La Caja China, the Medley-based,
family-run company where Arango bought his pig-roasting box.
"It's a slow process and there are some things Hispanics just hesitate to
buy online, especially food," said Guerra, 48. "It's going to take years for
the Internet to take over the Hispanic public the way it has the general
public, especially for the holidays."
Christmas Eve traditions differ slightly throughout Latin America and within
local Hispanic communities. Mexicans tonight will celebrate the last of nine
posadas, or gatherings that recreate the Virgin Mary and Joseph's
trek through the desert in the days leading up to Christmas. Similarly,
Colombians will pray the Novena al Niño Dios, which celebrates at
midnight the birth of Christ.
Cubans, Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean Hispanics will roast a pig and
toast with a coquito, or coconut-flavored drink. Many will attend
la Misa de Gallo, or Midnight Mass, and most will return home to eat,
have the children open presents and celebrate into the early hours of
Christmas Day. Web sites are making it easier for Hispanics to buy
everything from DVDs documenting the history of the nativity scene to Web
logs chronicling preparations for tonight's festivities.
Jess Feiler of North Palm Beach read about La Caja China in the December
edition of Latina magazine. After reviewing the Web site, Feiler
ordered a roasting box for his wife, Maggie, who is Cuban.
"It was a pretty cool site," said Feiler, who was attracted by its array of
information and product endorsements. "It was neat the way you could get
recipes on the site, too."
Guerra, who was born in Cuba and moved to Miami, started La Caja China
International, Inc. 18 years ago.
Before creating the company's Web site in 1998, most of his sales were to
customers who had heard about the boxes through word of mouth. But last
year, Guerra said nearly 97 percent of the 8,000 orders were placed online.
"If it wasn't for the Internet, I probably would have closed my doors long
ago," Guerra said.
The Internet also has revolutionized the way Nelsy Arellano runs her
4-year-old Weston shipping business, MailTime. Two years ago she began
working with the owners of Café Canela, a Venezuelan bakery also in Weston,
offering hallacas and pan de jamón online.
"It's easy to find these foods in South Florida, but not in other states,"
said Arellano. "People were asking us for it. Now, we get four to five
orders a day."
While it is unclear exactly how many Internet purchases are made by
Hispanics, a 2004 study by the Pew Hispanic Center reports that 20 percent
of foreign-born Latinos report getting news from the Internet compared with
44 percent of U.S.-born Latinos.
Jorge Castillo, Raúl Musibay and Glenn Lindgren, three brothers-in-law from
Miami, started a Web site dedicated to Cuban Christmas traditions in 1999 as
a way to "inspire people to roast pigs `Cuban-style' all over the world, and
not just for Noche Buena," Lindgren said in an e-mail.
The site details "10 simple steps to roasting a pig" and shows pictures and
diagrams of everything from the selection of the swine to creating an
aluminum mesh for the roasting pit and how to tell when your pig is ready to
eat.
"There was so much interest in Cuban cuisine that the response has been
incredible," said Castillo, adding that more than 500,000 people have
visited the site since it's creation.
But for some like Salvadoran-born Maria Gallegos, Noche Buena is more
about tradition, including the oral history of the holidays and family
unity, than about searching for recipes or shopping online.
"I don't really use the Internet," said Gallegos, who owns the Salvadoran
restaurant La Molienda in Oakland Park. "It's through word of mouth that
people give me my publicity."
Still, said Guerra: "The Internet makes it so easy. Eventually all I want to
do is sell wholesale and online."
Elizabeth Baier can be reached at ebaier@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4637.
