Tostones.

Tostones exist wherever plantains and frying oil met in the Caribbean, which means the same thing is eaten across Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela and much of Central America under half a dozen names — patacones in Colombia and Ecuador, tachinos or chatinos in parts of Cuba itself, fritos in Venezuela. The plantain is an Old World crop, brought from Africa and Southeast Asia through Spanish and Portuguese trade, that found ideal conditions in the Caribbean and became a staple faster than almost anything else planted there.

The double-fry technique is what makes them specific. A single fry either leaves the middle raw and starchy or burns the outside before the inside cooks, because green plantain is dense and low in sugar. Frying at moderate heat cooks it through, and the smash increases the surface area so the second, hotter fry can crisp a much larger area at once. Some cooks dip the smashed rounds in salted water or garlic water between the two fries, which puts salt inside the plantain and makes the crust blister more dramatically; it also makes the oil spit, so it is a genuine trade-off rather than a straightforward improvement.

In Cuba tostones sit on the table beside roast pork, fried fish and ropa vieja, and they double as a vehicle: pressed thicker and cupped into a mould, they become tostones rellenos, filled with shrimp or picadillo. The everyday household tool for flattening is not a purpose-made tostonera but whatever is heavy and flat — a glass bottom, a plate, a folded piece of paper and a fist. The distinction between tostones and maduros, the sweet fried plantains, is a matter of ripeness: green fruit for these, black-skinned overripe fruit for the sweet ones, and the two are never interchangeable.