Pork legs from the United States, Spanish milk and Mexican beans. At the tables of Cuban families, imported products outnumber the number and quality of the few foods that come out of the fields and national industries. Just write “imported” next to an offer to make customers feel more confident and seduced.
“My sister bought me the male plantain tostones from a place that brings them frozen from the United States,” says a 45-year-old from Havana. “Luckily he sent them to me, because here there are no longer large plantains that are used to make good tostones, and with this I guarantee to have at least one fried food for Christmas.”
In the same digital site that sells the frozen product, you can also buy fried ripe plantains, ready to put in the pan and serve. “One grew up believing that the banana was something from here, we even made fun of those clichés that they saw us as people who were permanently eating banana, and now we have to bring it from abroad.”
“When what I got was fishmeal and the animal spent its fattening time eating that, then it threw a steak in the pan and it seemed that it was frying claria”
Where the needle of preferences points with more force to what is imported over the national is in sausages and meat products. The nosedive in pork production, the ups and downs of livestock, which has not quite raised its head despite the most recent flexibilities in the sector, and the deep mistrust of diners reinforce this trend.
“Pork takes on the flavor of the food you give the animal,” says El Pana, a pig producer from Alquízar, in Artemisa, whom 14ymedio has followed the trail from the time it started in the sector until it ended up dismantling its pens last year, tired of not getting feed and affected by the restrictions on entry to Havana due to the pandemic.
“When what I got was fishmeal and the animal spent its fattening time eating that, then it threw a steak in the pan and it seemed that it was frying claria,” he says. “People have lost their reference and don’t even remember what pork tastes like, but I’ve been in this business for many years and I know when a pig ate garbage and when they gave it something else.”
“In the fat and meat of the animal, a lot of what it has eaten accumulates, as soon as you cut a leg or a shoulder, you can notice it by the tone of the upper. Imagine when you put it to cook, all that smell comes out and fills the house. I cannot sell what I myself would not eat, and here feeding a pig correctly is impossible. “
In El Pana’s opinion, this is one of the motivations for opting for the imported product. “You realize that they are younger pigs, because they managed to reach the weight for slaughter in the time it should be and not like it happens here that, as it does not have feed, the animal passes the time and it is still skinny. You can’t kill that way. “
“Not to mention chicken, that has been almost everything from abroad for a long time,” acknowledges the producer.
“Not to mention chicken, that has been almost everything from abroad for a long time,” acknowledges the producer. “Here in the surroundings of Alquízar we had several poultry farms, there is nothing left of that. Even the roofs and fences have been stolen little by little.”
Something similar happens in livestock. The stores in freely convertible currency (MLC) and the digital sites that offer their merchandise for the emigrants to feed their families on the Island are full of cuts of beef coming mostly from Spain and Uruguay. An inquiry in one of those portals about the possibility of buying national meat yielded a brief answer: “We do not offer Cuban beef. It does not meet the quality requirements.”
In the same message, the customer was offered the possibility of buying a package of “chopped veal meat, ideal for skewers” or a tray of “ground beef fillet meat”, imported from Spain. Another “cheaper” option is “a kilogram of totally Iberian beef skirt”. Crossing the Atlantic seems to add more symbolic value to the merchandise.
While in many countries there is an increase in movements favorable to local commerce, which favors local products, in Cuba consumers are opting for imported food. Local consumption is hardly concentrated in some vegetables, seasonal fruits and vegetables, but with the rise in prices in recent months, sometimes a canned or frozen product is cheaper.
“The pound of beans is above 90 pesos when it is found,” says Victor Manuel, a retiree who frequently visits the agricultural market on San Rafael Street in Havana. “To give it flavor I have to buy even a little chorizo or bacon, also add onion, garlic and other seasonings. When I get an account, a bean stew for my wife and for me comes to more than 180 or 200 pesos “.
“My son, who lives in Miami, buys me cans of Asturiana bean stew through stores and the internet, which cost less than four dollars each. My wife and I eat with two without going back and forth to the agri-market and without so much dirty pressure cooker. Cheaper and it has nothing to envy to what I could do in my kitchen with what little there is “.
“Before at Christmas, almost everything that was eaten was from here, if perhaps the nougat or cider came from elsewhere, but now the table looks like the United Nations,” jokes Víctor Manuel. “What does not come from Mexico, comes from New Zealand. Crazy.”
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