Ethnographic atlas of Cuba

Traditional popular culture

Topics » Food and breverages

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Food and beverages have an outstanding place in the study of material culture. They play a vital role in the lives of men and women, as well as reflect their ethnic, historical and cultural specificities. In this area, although the urbanization and internationalization of traditional material culture, characteristic of modern societies, have had an impact, it has been much lesser than in other areas, such as housing and clothing.

Food and beverages exist on the boundary between the material and spiritual areas of life. On the one hand, they satisfy hunger and thirst, and on the other, they have a social function: they contribute to human relations within a strictly familiar context and outside of it, they generate standards of conduct and traditions linked with them.

The specific occasions in which people gather to eat, the food they share -- and the ways they obtain them --, the dishes and drinks they prepare for each occasion, the methods they use to cook and preserve their food, the time of the day in which they eat, their behavior at the table, the people who share a meal, the order in which people sit at the table and in which they are served, the cutlery used, are elements that reflect ethnic and cultural specificities and differences between the peoples and are important elements in their identity.

We established a typology allowing an analysis of this phenomenon in cultural life. We studied the ethnic background that contributed to its emergence, as well as the impact that the transformations of the revolutionary period starting in 1959 has had in habits and customs of these food systems.

Because of its native origin, special attention was given to cassava bread. The so-called native cassava bread was important to the diet of the Spanish colonizers; it was frequently eaten in Cuba until the last century. It is still found today in some regions in the country and its preparation, in spite of the introduction of some technical advances, is still essentially that of the Cuban native population at the time of the Spanish conquest.

In literature, food is often classified according to its basic components -- animal and plant. However, in the typology for this work, a functional criteria was used. Food was not analyzed by its composition or by the methods used in its preparation, but according to its social function. As a fundamental comparison unit within the alimentary system, the occasions when people gather to eat were taken into account. Considered in this light, each type of food integrates all the previously mentioned aspects, first of all the dishes and beverages prepared for each occasion. From this viewpoint, the following types and variants are to be found:

Daily or habitual meals are fundamentally aimed at satisfying the essential biological requirements of men and women. They are the most frequent throughout the country. In turn, they reflect a historically established ethnic tradition that conditions the existence of specific variations in the different moments of the daily cycle: breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

Breakfast is the first meal of the day and its serving time depends on the activities of each family member. It may be served either at the dining room table or standing in the kitchen

Lunch is served at noon and even when the table is set more frequently than for breakfast, the family members may or may not be together, according to their daily tasks.

Dinner is the most important daily occasion for Cuban families. The best food is served at this time, among other reasons, because it is when all the members are gathered around the table. Also it is generally the last meal of the day and is taken at sunset, between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. Afterwards, there is a long period where food is not eaten

Snacks are not frequently eaten. They are considered as complements, and not everyone is used to them. Snacks may be eaten between breakfast and lunch or between lunch and dinner, but the latter is more frequent.

Occasional meals: A visitor is almost always the cause for a meal with something special in it, especially if the visit has been announced. If an unexpected guest arrives, at times an extra dish is made to compliment what had already been prepared, but it is common for people to cook more than what is habitually eaten just in case someone arrives unexpectedly.

Since on the weekends and, especially on Sundays, the family gathers to rest from work and study, something different is served. Special dishes, because of their preparation and ingredients, are made and more time is devoted to cooking. Also, since most of the visitors arrive during the weekend, among them elder children who now have their own households, both factors add up to create a special meal.

Family festive and mournful meals: These take place within the framework of the family, although close friends and neighbors may take part in them. They have to do with important moments in the life cycle -- births, birthdays, weddings, deaths of relatives and other events. They are held throughout the country and include holidays such as Mother′s Day (the second Sunday in May), Christmas Eve, New Year′s Eve, and July 26 (a national holiday). The almost strictly family nature of these gatherings is outstanding, since they are held almost simultaneously in every family. Other events, such as the welcome or farewell of a relative, in which invited friends and neighbors take part just like on birthdays and weddings, are also the occasion for a special type of meal.

As to funerals, since some rural areas are rather isolated, meals are prepared for those coming from far away places to attend them. Today they are frequent only in the Eastern part of the island, perhaps because of the improvement in the means of transportation in rural areas. Wakes, still held at home in isolated places such as mountainous regions, are increasingly held in funeral parlors of nearby towns, since the use of these facilities is free.

Social festive meals: These includes traditional popular festivities and those known as cooperative parties, which started only after the Revolution triumphed in 1959 when the Agricultural and Cattle Breeding Cooperatives (CPA) and Credit and Service Cooperatives (CCS) were established. Their social framework is larger and transcends the family environment. A considerable number of people take part in them and this, in turn, has had an impact on the food served.

Cooperative parties include the commemoration of dates such as Peasant′s Day (May 17), the International Women′s Day (March 8), and others, as well as events related with economic and social activities, as the checking of productive performance and the results of socialist competition. Human relations with political, social and economic nuances emerge from these festivities and give them a different character.

Carnivals and other traditional festivities, typical in some parts of the country, are included under this heading, together with the recently established municipal cultural weeks.

Ethnic food specificities have to do with historically established ethnic traditions intimately linked to other factors with an unquestionable impact on the alimentary system. These include the physical and geographical characteristics of the territory and specific elements in the social and economic history of the country.

It is very difficult to state categorically that one or another dish in Cuban traditional cuisine is of Spanish, African or native origin. In the ethnic process undergone by the Cuban nation, the various types of food each group contributed were modified, creating a qualitatively different product. Fernando Ortiz called this cultural phenomenon "transculturation."

The main ethnic components of the Cuban people are Spanish and African. A process of extermination rapidly did away with the native population as an ethnos. However, the native contribution in some areas of Cuban culture is undeniable, especially regarding food.

During the early conquest and settlement of the country, the Spanish were compelled to adopt some native food habits; cassava became their staple product, mainly in cassava bread; other root crops, corn, some varieties of beans, fruit and other local foodstuffs were added to it. Sea food and the meats the natives ate from iguanas, hutias (a rodent), crocodiles and various birds were also part of their nourishment. The extended use of chili pepper as a seasoning and of grilled food -- the native barbecue -- are considered native influences. Some of these types of food were later rejected, but others occupy an important place, not only in Cuban cuisine but also in that of other countries, as is the case with cassava, cassava bread and corn.

As to the Spanish influence, domestic animals that did not exist in Cuba were brought during the early conquest and bred quickly. Later various crops were introduced, among them sugar cane, rice, some legumes, many vegetables and roots, fruit, spices and, in a later stage, coffee.

Little by little, the settlers′ diet prevailed, since they also imported the products they were accustomed to, such as flour, oil, and wine. Although the native diet was replaced by one based on rice, beans, meats, milk, eggs, the products that been found locally continued in use. The native ajiaco, for example, merged with the Spanish hotchpotch, but pork and beef and, later, some African root vegetables were added to it. Root vegetables and corn were included in various stews from the Spanish cuisine. Garbanzos and broad beans, traditional in Spain, were in the course of time replaced almost completely in Cuba by haricot beans and red and black beans, cooked in the Spanish manner. As time went by and as a result of cultural exchanges between the colony and the metropolis, these new habits entered into some regions in Spain.

As to African components, black slaves were compelled to adapt themselves to the dominant culture. They were unable to choose their food, not only because of the characteristics of the exploitation they were submitted to, but also because in their new environment they were unable to find many of the elements of the African diet. Besides, most of them were men, and it should be noted that it is women who generally hand down this type of knowledge to the succeeding generations.

But, nevertheless, the Spanish received their influence, perhaps because of the mere fact that blacks -- whether free or slave -- were almost always the ones to cook. Also, foodstuffs such as malanga, plantains, yam, okra and dishes prepared from them -- together with the ways food was seasoned -- came from Africa. It would be impossible to speak about Cuban cuisine without mentioning African elements.

The abundance of white rice in the Cuban diet, by itself or with bean soups, the congri or moros con cristianos (Moors and Christians) and roasted pork seem to be African influences or created by Africans or persons of African descent with the resources available to them.

This brief draft of the ethnic history of the Cuban people cannot conclude without mention of the French, French Haitian, Chinese and other elements that, although to a lesser extent, later and in different moments, also influenced the food system.

Towards the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, French and French Haitian immigrants established coffee plantations in all the mountainous areas of Cuba. From that date on, drinking coffee became an established habit in Cuba, displacing cacao.

As alternative formulae to the slave system, from the middle of the 19th century Chinese and Yucatecan laborers were brought to Cuba. There also was a strong Chinese immigration in the first years of the 20th century. The influence of these groups in traditional food is less evident. Chinese were also used frequently as cooks, and left their mark in the way some food is prepared, such as the use of lime -- as in Chinese pumpkin preserve -- that is to be found throughout the country, although not very frequently.

After the Cuban-Spanish-American war ended with the occupation of Cuba by the United States and its penetration in national economy, an intense American settlement began, mostly in Camaguey, Oriente and Isle of Pines -- today, Isle of Youth. It is difficult to trace accurately its mark in food ways, but cakes were always to be found in Mothers′ Day and Saint Valentine celebrations, as well as when a girl arrived at her 15th birthday, the equivalent of the American Sweet Sixteen.

In the first part of the present century there was a large entrance of West Indian laborers -- mainly from Haiti and Jamaica -- to the new sugar plantations in Camaguey and Oriente; with Haitians came the dumplings (flour balls added to stews) and the use of blite and other herbs to make calalu, that is still prepared, although not frequently, in the area of Guantanamo.

The present peasant diet throughout Cuba is made up of rice, beans, root vegetables and meat. Corn is also important. Fresh vegetables are frequently found in salads.

The variety of the products they eat depends to a great extent on the production in the lots assigned to these households to grow their own produce. These lots have always had a large significance -- perhaps the single most important one -- in the diet of the rural population. However, the role of rural general stores, where since the last century peasants bought at least part of what they needed to supplement their diet, should be taken into account, since they contributed to make diets more uniform.

In spite of there being common origins for the food system throughout the country, there are differences among the regions, above all on regarding the frequency with which some dishes are had and the preference for them.

Lastly, the changes that took place after the triumph of the Revolution have had a quantitative and qualitative impact on the diet of the rural population, having to do with the levels of use of the various types and variations studied in these work, the use of processed food, and a change in habits and behavior at meals.

The rationing system for the distribution of food had among its impacts the regular arrival to the countryside of products such as bread, pasta, fish and others, while traditional foodstuffs such as jerked beef or salted codfish are rarely seen today because of social and economic factors such as the required readjustment of imports.

Niurka Nuñez Gonzalez
Estrella Gonzalez Noriega

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Some dishes in cuban traditional cuisine

Recetas de cocina tradicional cubana
  • Cassava
  • Corn
  • Bananas and plantains
  • Sweet potato
  • Malanga
  • Potato
  • Pumpkin
  • Chopo
  • Eggplant
  • Tomato
  • Beans
  • Cabbage
  • Palm Hearts
  • Fruits
  • Citricos
  • Calalu
  • Pork byproducts