美国国家公共电台 NPR Chef José Andrés Has Served Nearly 1.5 Million Meals To Hungry Puerto Ricans

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Another story now. The Coliseo is the biggest concert hall in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Now, since Hurricane Maria devastated 1 the island a month ago, the hall has become the center of a massive 2 effort to feed tens of thousands of people left hungry by the storm. NPR's Christina Cala spoke 3 to the man behind the effort, Jose Andres, who owns some of Washington, D.C.'s, best-known restaurants.

CHRISTINA CALA, BYLINE 4: Yamil Lopez is stirring one of the largest paella pans you'll ever see. It's 5 feet in diameter. This one alone holds enough to feed 850 people.

YAMIL LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

CALA: This batch 5 has rice, pork, sausage, black beans, red beans, carrots - 12 ingredients in all but no seafood 6.

LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).

CALA: "We call this Paella Maria, like the hurricane," Lopez says, "because we're using the ingredients we have on hand." In addition to paella, a few hundred volunteers prepare stews 7 and sandwiches - 60,000 a day.

JOSE ANDRES: We are about to reach the million and a half served, vast majority of them hot meals.

CALA: This is Jose Andres. He's known for his upscale restaurants and for canceling his plans to open one in Donald Trump's D.C. hotel. Here, he's overseeing a large effort to feed as many people as he can.

ANDRES: Inside, you have one of the most effective sandwich lines made by volunteers in the history. I'm so proud of them.

CALA: Boxes of apples and stacks of canned Goya beans line the rounded hallways. Open areas are set up with long tables covered in sandwich-making supplies - bread, ham, cheese, mayonnaise. A volunteer writes the totals on a piece of poster board hanging on the wall. By the end of the day, they'll have made almost 25,000 sandwiches.

ANDRES: We have the food trucks that they reach any area - sometimes have difficult access, so we use one house here, one house there.

CALA: Food is also available for pickup 8.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Spanish).

CALA: Zelides Enid and friends were waiting in line for 300 meals to take to their neighborhood in Canovanas two cities over.

ZELIDES ENID: (Speaking Spanish).

CALA: "We haven't gotten much help in our community and still haven't received anything from FEMA," she says. "That's why we came here."

ANDRES: I didn't see a plan. And instead of planning and meeting, I began cooking. And we began feeding.

CALA: Jose Andres arrived a few days after Maria. Soon after, FEMA gave his nonprofit World Central Kitchen enough money to prepare 20,000 meals over seven days. That's on top of the 50,000 people a day he was already feeding. Jose Andres asked FEMA to increase its funding, but the agency told him that would take longer because of their contracting rules.

ANDRES: Maybe it was not perfect. Maybe it was not organized by the rules or regulations of the federal government. But I can tell you that if you go to ask every one of those men and women that receive those meals, probably they will tell you that for them, the plan was good enough.

CALA: Remember those three women from Canovanas? Six hours after arriving, they were still waiting for their 300 meals.

JUANA DE LA CRUZ: (Speaking Spanish).

CALA: "It'll still be a while," Juana de la Cruz says. Despite the wait, she is very grateful. This will be her only meal today. Christina Cala, NPR News, San Juan, Puerto Rico.