Though change may seem slow, the Upper Valley food scene is gradually diversifying — from Turkish food at the recently expanded Tuckerbox in White River Junction to Cambodian meals at the new permanent location of the Phnom Penh Sandwich Station on High Street in Lebanon.
Now, two Upper Valley women are adding Latin American flavors to the mix.
Morenas Latin Cantina’s co-owners, Omaira Saloum and Monica Masland, began serving arepas, tacos, empanadas, tamales and paellas with flavors from their respective native lands of Venezuela and Mexico to Hanover Farmers’ Market patrons in June.
“It’s real spicy,” Saloum said in a phone interview last week. She warns customers: “Be careful. This is not American spicy.”
The dishes Saloum and Masland offered this summer seemed to appeal to the diverse tastes of the Hanover crowd, she said.
“It was an experiment,” Saloum said. And it appears to have been successful.
The business is named for a term, morena, used to describe the tan complexion of brunette Latina women and it is plural because there are two of them.
The women, who listen to Latin music — salsa and merengue — and dance while they cook together, are continuing the venture through the winter, weekly at the Newberry Market in White River Junction and monthly at the Lebanon Winter Farmers’ Market.
The two friends and business partners first met through the Buena Gente Social Club, a Hanover-based Spanish language group.
Saloum, whose father is originally from Syria, grew up in Venezuela where she worked as a lawyer before moving to Miami, initially to study English, in 2000. Conditions in Venezuela deteriorated economically, politically and socially while she was in the U.S. and she felt it was not safe for her to return.
In a change of direction, she earned an associate degree in culinary arts from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in 2005 and she worked in food service in Miami. Her food is also inspired by the cooking of her mother and grandmother, she said.
She moved to Hanover last year with her husband, Sylvain Foster, who works in finance at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and their two sons, Nicolas, 10, and Ian, 4.
Masland first came to the U.S. 20 years ago to study English. She lived in Philadelphia, San Francisco and North Carolina before moving to the Upper Valley about a decade ago. She lives in Lyme with her husband, Jonathan, who works at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and their two daughters, Alina, 16 and Juliana, 9.
She learned everything she knows about Mexican cooking from her mother and grandmother. She aims to remain true to the authenticity of their recipes.
“I’m very proud of my heritage,” she said. “I’m trying to preserve the essence of the Mexican cuisine.”
The venture has become a project for both families. The women call their husbands, “chief tasting officers,” and the men have also helped out with the business’ web presence at morenaslatincantina.com and on Facebook and Instagram. The kids help out at the markets when they’re not in school and they have the final say on new menu items.
“The kids have to approve,” Saloum said.
Saloum spoke by phone from Manchester, where she had gone in search of spices, which she declined to name for fear of revealing her secret ingredients.
“I cannot tell you,” she said.
She can find main ingredients — pork, chicken, beef and vegetables — in the Upper Valley, but the spices she needs are best found at a Latin American supermarket, she said.
“It’s very difficult to find Latino products up there,” she said of the Upper Valley.
The winter menus are slightly different than those offered at the Hanover market to cater to the new clientele and to suit each location.
In an outdoor booth, they can have a grill and cook food fresh to order, but that isn’t possible at Newberry Market or the Upper Valley Senior Center, where the Lebanon Winter Farmers’ Market is held.
So far, the clientele at the winter venues has been inconsistent. The Newberry Market is new this year and has yet to develop a following, she said.
At last week’s market, they kept the menu simple: Mexican hot chocolate, chicken, beef and black bean empanadas and tostada al pastor, a vegetarian salad on top of a crispy corn tortilla.
Aside from the empanadas, which Saloum can bake at home, they prepare most of the food in rented commercial kitchen space at Claremont’s Revolution Cantina on Monday mornings. Given that moving the ingredients and finished products back and forth from Claremont is inconvenient, this is a temporary arrangement, Saloum said.
Eventually, the duo would like to open their own restaurant, which would give them kitchen space from which they could sell their food and prepare catered meals. Eventually, they would like to offer lunches Monday through Friday.
“We’re very excited,” she said. “This is going to grow more and more.”
But, she reminded herself, “You have to take it slow.”
Newberry Market is held in the old J.J. Newberry space on Main Street in White River Junction every Thursday, except for holidays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The Lebanon Winter Farmers’ Market is held on the third Saturday of the month, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Upper Valley Senior Center on Campbell Street.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
