Underwhelming Gastronomic Adventures in Cuba

If you ask anyone who's ever been to Cuba what they remember most about their trip the answers will usually fall into the same three categories; the music, the beaches and the architecture/old cars. But no one, NO ONE, ever says "oh, you know, I had the most AMAZING plate of rice and beans. I mean, what a great way to get your complete protein!" Yes everyone loves the rum and the cigars but why is every other consumable in Cuba so mediocre? If you can bear to be cynically honest with yourself you notice that most middle-aged Cubans are quite plump. Not hyper-obese, not "I ride my Rascal down the middle of the road to the Walmart to buy 4 litre tubs of ice cream" fat, but people of a certain age are ... THICK! So obviously people are eating something and it must taste okay, otherwise Cuba's number one export would be supermodels and not cohibas (though both provide a pleasant oral experience, I'm sure).

So.

Despite my vegetarian disability working against me I set out to discover what it is Cubans eat, and eat so plentifully.

After an exhausting afternoon of queueing up at immigration, security scans, baggage check, customs and the currency exchange by the time my bag was deposited at the casa particular (Cubans rent out rooms to tourists as a black market method of making a buck) I was mother friggin' STARVING! Thank god only 200 feet away, located in a pleasant cobbled plaza, is Havana's only brew pub. After explaining to the waiter my disability he offered to 'do what he could' and I was tired enough to leave it at that. Before dinner arrived I had already sucked back a frothy mug of their absolutely delicious amber ale, the right balance of bitterness and body with a delicate lashing of sweetness on the back of the palate. Dinner, by comparison, was a horrible disappointment. The rice and stewed vegetables with a side of sliced raw cabbage bespoke of the most depressing institutional fare, the kind made famous in the workhouses and orphanages of Dickensian England. Thank god the precious and well crafted brew was there to fill the hunger gap, but Cuba and I were off to a bad start.

The next day delivered below my already lowered expectations. You know you're in a country that truly doesn't understand vegetarianism when you are forced to eat the exact same meal for both lunch and dinner because of the simple fact that there's NOTHING ELSE YOU CAN EAT! Of course there's always salad! This is a picture of my dinner at the extremely expensive (for Cuba) Tropicana nightclub which has been in operation since 1939 back when Cuba was a tropical version of Las Vegas. This storied institution had only one item on their menu I could eat, a cheese sandwich. Granted there is a lot of cheese there, enough to put a bull elephant into a fat coma. And if you're wondering what that delightful red condiment is which lines the lower edge of my top bun, it is ketchup. Yes, a cheese and ketchup sandwich. Just like the one I'd eaten for lunch at another tourist-death-trap of a restaurant. Though liberal doses of rum negated my despondency over the lack of victual variety I held out little hope for the days to come.

Day three in Cuba dawned with a warm and sultry greeting, sunshine dusted the cobblestones with gold and children screamed in their raffish way in the park across from the casa. A long and peaceful walk along the Malecon, or seawall, brought me to another of Cuba's landmarks from the good old, bad old days when gangsters and rich Americans used Cuba as their off-shore grotto for bad behaviour; la Hotel Nacional de Cuba. Absolutely everyone has stayed here from Al Capone and Frank Sinatra to Benicio del Toro and Steven Spielberg, even Jean Chretien stayed here (that wily frenchman!). The beautiful old building is a testament to "how things used to be made" and the lobby spanks of the glamourous days when art deco ruled supreme. The hotel sits on a small promontory overlooking the sea. What with the luxurious surroundings, the vitamin-D giving sunlight and the pleasant salty breeze, it seemed like a good place to have lunch. Of course I ate salad (ensalada de estacion, they call it) and rice and beans washed down with a crisp Cuban lager. It may have been the location or the framed photo of Will Smith which gazed on me as I ate, or it could have been the litre of rendered pork fat the beans were cooked in, but these were the best goddamn rice and beans I've ever tasted. So again, little in the way of surprises, but the execution was perfection.

Most of the best meals I had while in Cuba were the massive breakfasts prepared by the senora of the casa, Damayi.

The great thing about these epic meals was that aside from the standard bread and egg component you get to chow down on a massive plate of salad and then an equally massive plate of fruit. You feel like such a glutton because of the sheer volume of food but it's all ultra healthy so NO GUILT! As I worked through these morning feasts Damayi would stand at the stove making pot after pot of sweet strong Cuban coffee and gossiping about the ongoing drama of her extended family.

In Santa Clara I stayed at another casa particular, an old colonial building in the centre of the town with windows onto the adjacent Parqeo Vidal.

This feast was prepared by the wife and mother of our host, Miguel, who hovered constantly at my elbow wearing one of his many fedoras and nagging me to recommend him to my friends in Canada. The bean soup had been slow simmered with fatty pieces of pork for many hours which made the broth hearty with a great depth of flavour.

The plantain were perfectly fried with a crispy outer shell and a creamy centre. More eggs, of course, and rice with salad. But everything was so lovingly prepared that it was truly fabulous.

This sight truly tempted my vegetarian convictions. The caramel coloured skin of a well roasted pig sets off some kind of primal device in my brain, I begin to salivate and clench my toes, my pupils dilate and an overwhelming desire for pork floods my being. All over the tiny town of Remedios there are street vendors all selling slabs of whole roast pig on white buns. As a sidebar, Cubans almost exclusively eat their bread in bun form, it is almost impossible to find sliced bread.

These vendors are set up to cater to the crowds who attend the annual festival of las Parrandas. The entire population of Remedios and the surrounding area appear to have three goals on the day of las Parrandas; blow shit up, eat lots of pork-on-a-bun and get stupid, stumbling, blindingly drunk on rum. At around noon I saw dozens of people swanning around the main plaza with nearly empty 26ers of rum in their hands. And why not? It's Christmas.

Back in Havana I made a pilgrimage to the bar El Floridita, where the world's first daiquiri was allegedly made. Ernest Hemingway spent so much time here that there is a bronze statue of him in the corner, leaning against the bar. The room was decorated in plush red velvet drapes ornamented with oversized candy canes. A plate of salty plantain chips appeared on the table almost immediately, the drinks were strong and tuxedoed waiters moved with professional efficiency. This is a bar where it would be very easy to get comfortable a la Hemingway who allegedly once drank 13 double daiquiris in one sitting. But at 6 convertible pesos per daiquiri maybe it's good not to get TOO comfortable.

Cuba certainly was no culinary wonderland but what it lacked on the plate it made up for it in so many other ways; the warmth of its people, the music which emanated from every home and plaza and the ethereal otherworldliness of place stuck in time and an ideal which are fading away before my eyes.

So it's with an authentic daiquiri in my hand and a Cuban cigarillo between my lips that I bid adios to Cuba. Mucho gusto!