-Welcome back to "The Tonight Show" in Puerto Rico!
I'm here with world-renowned chef and best-selling author
José Andrés.
We are in Piñones right now, at "El Rinconcito Latino."
Not bad? -Good Spanish.
-Yeah, not bad, right? Look at that.
-This is great Spanish.
I cannot believe it. -José, thank you.
Chef, thank you for being here.
Can you please show me some of the coolest stuff
that you can eat here?
-This is one of the many places
you will find in a place like Piñones.
Everybody knows Piñones. I mean, locals come here.
Everybody here, they are local.
So if you're a tourist and you want to become a local,
you come here.
And what do you do?
Two rum sours, please. -Oh, yeah!
-Two rum sours. ♪♪
-Chef, what did you bring? What do we have?
-This is alcapurria.
This is the essence of Puerto Rico.
So, they make with yuca and yautia,
which is another root vegetable, right here,
and they make this mash.
And once they make the mash,
they stuff it with different things.
This one is with meat, the carne.
But yours is different. Yours is a jueyes.
-A jueyes. -Jueyes. Okay.
Can you you learn how to pronounce the Spanish?
I mean, look at me. I speak perfect English.
You should try to speak perfect Spanish.
So, jueyes. -Jue...
Jueyes. Here we go.
-So, it's crabmeat. It's lightly crispy and crunchy.
The smell is sweet, but you cannot eat
until I don't finish the explanation.
-I know, but come on. -And then you have to smell it.
-Stop talking about it and let me eat!
-And then you are salivating. -Yes, I am ready to eat!
-So this is delicious.
And now, only now, you can bring into your mouth
this amazing piece of Puerto Rico.
You need to close your eyes before you bite into it.
Yeah. Thank you.
-Oh! Oh, my goodness. -Control yourself.
-Oh, my gosh. -Control yourself. It's TV.
People are watching. -I'm sorry, yeah.
-Yes. -Calm down. Focus up.
Please. What is this is?
-That's the pastelito, the empanadilla.
This one looks like it's octopus.
-Oh, it's octopus. Ready?
-No, you didn't close your eyes. -No, I did.
-I know. I was seeing if you were closing your eyes.
Mmm!
Come on, now. Oh! That's the one.
That's the one.
-That's the one.
That's the one! That's the one!
-Wow. What is that taste in there?
-Every chef in Puerto Rico has their own
little secret ingredients from the island,
ingredients from other parts of the world that became one.
Puerto Rico obviously developed their own cooking.
And, to me today, the cooking of Puerto Rico
is one of the most interesting cookings
not only in America, but anywhere around the world.
-Yeah, really. Oh, is that -- Whoa!
-Oh, the rum sours are ready.
¿Cómo estás? -Bien.
-For you. -Muchas gracias.
-And for me. -Okay. Okay.
-Oh, this is so good!
With the Puerto Rican breeze coming in,
the sun, and the heat?
-I mean, we should walk in the beach.
-Let's go. -Look at this.
-I mean, come on.
This is beautiful.
-I mean, this is one reason why everybody in America --
if they want to support Puerto Rico,
they should come here.
Look at this.
History, great people, great food.
-You don't need a passport. -You don't need a passport.
-It's America, yeah.
-And plenty of small businesses all around the island
just to make you feel like
you are the most important person on Earth.
-Yeah. Well, the big thing for you is to support
the local businesses, the small businesses.
Why is that so important?
-Because, at the end, the small businesses
is what keeps the world running, especially in America.
I mean, if we help one small business at the time,
I know that the local economy in Puerto Rico
will come back on its own,
because those are great, hard-working American people.
-When I told people I was going to be interviewing you,
people were like, "Chef Andrés --
oh, he's an angel."
How does that make you feel?
People really appreciate what you're doing
and what you're doing for Puerto Rico
and everything you do with World Central Kitchen.
-I came to the Caribbean 28 years ago,
first time as a sailor in the Spanish Navy.
But, very quickly, I came to Puerto Rico
and I fell in love more than 25 years ago.
When the Hurricane Maria happened,
the first thing I did was, on the first plane, I came.
A group of friends, the best chefs in the island, legends --
Jose Enrique, Santaella, Wilo.
Amazing chefs.
They all came together.
We opened a kitchen and we began feeding anybody
that requested a plate of food.
We went from one kitchen to 26,
from 1,000 meals the first day to 150,000 meals a day,
from 20 friends the first day to more than 25,000 volunteers.
At the end, we did almost 4 million meals.
At the end, the people of Puerto Rico fed Puerto Rico.
The people of Puerto Rico has the biggest heart
I've ever seen in my entire life.
They came together as one people.
And, together, they move forward after the Maria Hurricane.
-What was it like being here two days after --
or as soon as the hurricane hit?
-Yeah, three days later, I arrived.
I mean, it was very hard.
I mean, people here had water. There was no electricity.
Doctors were operating with their lights on their iPhones.
The situation was chaotic.
And was not just a day or a week.
This went for weeks and weeks and weeks.
-Your book, "We Fed an Island," you talk about
everything you've been doing here
with your team and everyone with World Central Kitchen.
What were the hurdles?
What were the problems that you faced?
-Listen, in the book, obviously, I'm very critical
of some of the responses on the government,
but I want to make clear, the people in the government,
the people in FEMA, for me,
are the biggest heroes I've ever met.
They're really good people. What happened?
The systems that the government creates
don't allow those men and women to be successful.
So when somebody says, "I want a smaller government"
and "I want a government that is really there for the people,"
fine, I support that, too,
but in Puerto Rico, we didn't see that happen.
So I wrote the book to make sure that we learn something from it,
and next time something like this happens
that we didn't expect, it's okay to not be ready.
What is never okay is not to adapt to the new situation.
What we did is to adapt to the new situation.
I hope the book will give a path to show others
that we don't need so many meetings.
All you need to do is come up with more simple solutions
that everybody understands so everybody can join the team
and everybody can execute quicker, faster, and better.
-I just can't say enough. Thank you to you.
Gracias. Gracias por todos. -[ Laughs ]
-You're getting there.
I mean, I'm going to send you a check for free Spanish classes.
-Oh! I thought you were gonna say -- Yeah.
-But you know what? Can I do something?
-Yeah.
-Let me thank every single man and woman of Puerto Rico,
because they do deserve the biggest round of applause
by being the most amazing people I ever saw
after Hurricane Maria.
You, the people of Puerto Rico,
deserve the appreciation of all of America and all the world.
-I agree. -We love you.
Viva Puerto Rico. -So, what now?
What can we do now, anyone who's watching?
-So, everybody can do.
You are already doing by showing up.
Puerto Rico is a very safe island with great people.
Show up and enjoy this island.
-Do you hear that? Come to Puerto Rico.
Show up, support your local businesses,
support your local restaurants.
Let's go get another rum sour. -I endorse this message.