Established in 1867, Palmetto Beach is a diverse waterfront neighborhood that is rich in culture and history. Many families have lived here for generations, including mine. Palmetto Beach grew up around four cigar factories, the electric streetcar, and DeSoto Park.
I grew up in Palmetto Beach, a subdivision of Tampa, Florida. The community neighbored just south of Tampa’s Latin Quarters, Ybor City. Both communities consisted mostly of Spanish, Italian and Cuban immigrants. My grandparents who immigrated from Spain at an early age, met and married in Florida and settled and raised their three daughters in Palmetto Beach.
I likened the neighborhood to that of Huckleberry Finn’s and Tom Sawyer’s or to the community portrayed in Disney’s movie, Polyanna. We had everyone from wealthy judges and business owners to a small trailer park that housed the less fortunate. Most residents were considered middle class. Yet, we all played together, went to school together (DeSoto Elementary) and no one questioned each other’s socio-economic status. We just enjoyed playing together and participating in park activities, which were abundant. The community was small and everyone knew each other. As kids, we could be blocks away and if we got in trouble, our parents knew about it before we got home. I can’t remember any home having a fence. You could always cut through a neighbor’s yard to get to the next street. Air conditioning was not in vogue at that time (or mostly not affordable for many) and almost every home had a front porch. No matter where you were playing with your friends (could be blocks away from your home), you got hellos and watchful eyes from our neighbors enjoying a sea breeze on their open porches.
We lived a block away from McKay Bay, banked by DeSoto Park. The park was our home away from home and we would spend hours there every chance we got. One of my fondest memories of living so close to the park and the bay was going crabbing for blue crabs during the summer. We would catch an abundance of blue crabs and one of our parents would then make a pot of jaibas enchilados (crabs cooked in a spicy tomato sauce). The crabs were cleaned and cooked in the sauce and spaghetti was served with it. You always dressed in your worse clothes as you would generally get sauce all over them as well as sauce up to your elbows. Each person that made this dish had some twist that is different from yours, but for the most part the taste came out the same. If you needed to purchase some ingredients for the dish, you didn’t have to go far. We had mom and pop small grocery stores all over the neighborhood. Everyone was in walking distance to one of those stores. We had 3 near my home so if I couldn’t find what I needed in one, there was always the other two. We also had street vendors that peddled through the neighborhood selling seafood, vegetables and ice cream. The closest thing today that is like our mom and pop stores is in New York City, where you have a small grocery store within walking distance no matter what part of Manhattan you reside.
West Tampa was another concentration of Latin immigrants and you can still find a few of the mom and pop stores there. That’s where you can still find home made Spanish chorizos and other ingredients that are essential to Latin cuisine. It’s the only place you can buy palomilla (pronounced pal -oh-me-ya) steaks that, to this day, I have no idea what cut of meat that is, but Tampa is famous for their breaded palomilla steaks. Tampa is also the birthplace of the Cuban Sandwich, but that’s another story.
Because of the diversity of the neighborhood, we enjoyed many different delicious dishes hailing from Spain, Cuba, Italy and Sicily. There was also a lot of southern dishes that we were exposed to as well. I learned about country cooking from my neighbor who grew up on a farm. She was a great cook and made the best pies. But the one dish that makes me think of my neighborhood the most is jaibas enchilados.