Juan Agustín Pérez Pérez ("Tingo"): The Guardian of Memory and Flavor
Juan Agostín Pérez Pérez "Tingo" at his farm in Granadilla de Abona
Juan Agustín Pérez Pérez , affectionately known to generations of students and friends simply as "Tingo," has been a teacher in the municipality for 30 years. Originally from La Palma and born in Venezuela, he has lived in Granadilla for about 40 years, a place that captivated him deeply, first with love and then with its immense cultural richness.
Far from being content with classroom teaching, some 35 years ago Tingo embarked on a monumental personal mission: to travel the eight Canary Islands, town by town and festival by festival, to document the archipelago's ethnographic and gastronomic roots. The fruit of this preservation work is captured in fundamental works such as "Fiestas de Canarias" (2020) and "Saberes y Sabores" (2025). In these books, Granadilla de Abona occupies a place of honor, standing out both for the mastery of its artisans and the uniqueness of its recipes.
The soul of the Jable and the identity of the South
For Tingo, southern Tenerife is not an arid landscape, but an exceptionally beautiful and unique territory. He is a passionate advocate for the "jable culture," that volcanic sand that has shaped the architecture and, above all, the agriculture of the municipality. As he himself explains, cultivating in jable gives the local potatoes and vegetables a unique purity and flavor, very different from those obtained in the black soil of the north.
Tingo is a living encyclopedia of Granadilla's flavors. With nostalgia and pride, he recalls the time when the famous "navel oranges" from the priest's orchard were exported throughout the Canary Islands. Today, he is a staunch ambassador for local producers: from honeys from the coast, midlands, and highlands, to award-winning cheeses and the ancestral gofio ground in facilities with almost a century of history.
The authentic Granadilla Escaldón
If there's one dish that Tingo champions as a true "designation of origin" for the municipality, it's Escaldón de Granadilla . In contrast to the more common versions made with fish stock, Tingo documents and promotes the town's unique recipe: a base of white meat with a good garlic sofrito, to which water, egg, and the unmistakable local gofio are added.
Full Interview with Juan Agustín Pérez
"Time is infinite and we must seek it, because we too are finite."
He is, without a doubt, one of the essential people behind the flavor and memory of Granadilla.