Make salsita, but without a lemon, which is very expensive

Havana/When in the last century the dancers moved their bodies with the sticky are from Ignacio Piñeiro who asked for “¡¡¡Échale sauce!”, In their minds they not only imagined add more fun to a moment, but also eat a butifarra with abundant Creole mojo. But there is no good marinade without lemon in Cuba, so the musical theme now clashes with the reality of the markets where citrus has cost 500 pesos La Libra.

“The most affected are the bars that prepare many cocktails and drinks that include fresh lemon,” he tells 14ymedio Ismael, a 56 -year -old barman who has passed through several state premises until finally working in a central palate private “We continue to use newly squeezed juice because that is a quality guarantee and the client immediately realizes when trying the drink if it has been replaced by an artificial concentrate.”

However, the purists of the cocktails face a serious problem. “The offer is unstable and prices can upload a lot from one week to another,” he explains. “We have a combination of suppliers, a pair of Mayabeque Guajiros and the other part is completed with imported lemons,” he explains. In his opinion, “the lemon that is entering right now comes from Mexico and is of quite quality, with good performance.”

Put to describe the ideal fruit to prepare its brews, Ismael details: “big, with enough juice, few seeds and an intense flavor”

Put to describe the ideal fruit to prepare its concoctions, Ismael details: “big, with enough juice, few seeds and an intense flavor.” But those qualities seem to have been lost in the citrus that springs from the Cuban fields. “They are small, hard, it costs a lot to squeeze them and you have to double so that the drink has taste.” This deterioration of National citrus It has come from the hand of pests, hurricanes, the loss of international markets and state inefficiency.

Ismael is a close witness of the debacle. “I was in the camps of Isla de la Juventud because I am from Gerona, so I can say that I grew up among Naranjales, sown of grapefruits and lemons.” Those immense odorous fields were part of the national citrus program, created in 1967 by Fidel Castro, who, in the same way he did with livestock, coffee cultivation and the harvest, intended to turn the island into the largest regional producer of those fruits by which nations with long winters were devised.

For the 80s the per capita consumption figures of citrus were about 25 kilograms per year and exports to the communist countries of Eastern Europe reached 200,000 tons. It is hard to believe now those figures in a country where lemon is a sporadic presence in many markets and in family kitchens many have chosen to multiply it by zero before their high prices. At the beginning of this century, according to FAO, consumption per person barely reached 15 kilograms every year and has continued to fall significantly although official data has not been updated to the same extent.

“The other day I went to a private cafeteria and they said they had juices of all kinds, so I asked for one of Toronja,” Nuria, a 68 -year -old Habanera who also did “many voluntary works in those citrus plans” that extended on the island in his youth in his youth. “I asked the girl if they had one of Toronja and on the face she put it seemed to me that I did not know what it was what she asked,” he says. With a true I left the woman, the woman detailed to the saleswoman that it was a large, thick peel and bitter taste, the employee’s face made no gesture of having found in her memory something that fits in the description.

Nuria believes that many Cuban adolescents and children also believe that lemon is a liquid that is taken from one of those packaging that bring such an unnatural extract and that they are increasingly common in the homes of the island. “If we were experts in peeling tangerines and squeeze Creole lemons, these children of what they know is to remove the lid on the knob and throw a drizzle in the food.”

In this scenario, it is easy to imagine the scene: the septeto Ignacio Piñeiro singing that of “¡ÉCHALE SALSITA!” And a Cuban imberbe shaking a plastic container on a sausage fresh from the package, because neither Butifarra is already.