I HAVE an aversion to your typical “foodies". Most of them are pretentious food snobs who talk with their tongues rather than taste.
The other day, to my embarrassment, I told someone who suggested that my knowledge of food might not be very sophisticated: “Sweetie, while you were still eating rice, meat and potatoes at your mom’s table, I was already fine-dining in Michelin restaurants in Rome, Paris, New York and Sydney.” That's something a typical snob would say.
I can’t say I didn’t enjoy eating at those and similar fancy restaurants, but to me food is much more than that. It is a celebration of the good things in life, no matter how simple it is. It’s about more than just recipes and ingredients; it’s about people, togetherness, discovery, and a love for life. And no pretentiousness.
Let me put it this way: I’m more a fan of Anthony Bourdain than of Alain Ducasse or Thomas Keller. Even today, six years after his death, I still watch reruns of Bourdain’s TV series Parts Unknown, where he discovers indigenous foods all over the world.
In the coming months, I’m going to talk about the places I’ve been and the food I discovered there: Sarajevo, Gorée, Pristina, Lalibela, Newfoundland, Lilongwe, Luanda, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Seville, Kigali, Avignon, Porto, New Orleans, Berlin, and so on. I’m going to talk about the people and the culture, but I’ll also pick a favorite dish, make it myself, and help you (especially the men who don’t yet cook) make it too, so you can taste and travel the world with me.
Let’s start in Cuba
My fascination with Cuba goes back to my younger years: the rebellious, proud little nation bullied by America, the Buena Vista Social Club, rumba and nueva trova music, the old colonial architecture and the 1950s cars. Ernest Hemingway’s adopted home. Mostly untouched by American hyper-capitalism.
Che Guevara was an icon for me, a contemporary Don Quixote, until I saw a young loudmouth at an AWB meeting in Potchefstroom in 1989 wearing a Che T-shirt. After that, it was never the same.
Cuba is a beautiful and truly romantic island, but one must regularly remind oneself that it is ruled by a communist dictatorship and there is little respect for human rights and free speech.
The danger of a place like Cuba is that poverty looks romantic. You almost don’t want the old buildings to be renovated, the people to drive around in more modern vehicles, or the many horse-drawn carts to disappear. The shabby old women sitting in doorways with pink and blue plastic curlers in their hair and cigarettes in their mouths, and the children in tattered clothes kicking a ball made of tied-up plastic bags in the dusty streets, are just too cute for a tourist’s eye. Charming.
Most Cubans are poor, very poor, yes, and they don’t have the freedoms you and I enjoy, but they come across as anything but pathetic and downtrodden. Even the harshest critics of the government are deeply proud of Cuba and its history. And everywhere, from the clubs and streets in Havana to Ciego de Ávila and Las Tunas in the middle of the island and Santiago de Cuba in the south, you hear music and see people dancing after the sun goes down.
Even a manual labourer knows the history of the Spaniards who colonised the country in the 15th century, of the era of American occupation, and independence in 1902. In 1933, Fulgencio Batista took over after a coup, and he and the corrupt elite lived like kings until Fidel Castro and his small band arrived from Mexico on the yacht Granma in 1959 and overthrew the regime. (You can see the Granma in the museum in Havana.)
Almost everyone can tell you who José Martí was: a poet/writer/ philosopher who played a big role in Cuba’s liberation from Spanish colonialism.
A taxi driver insisted on taking me in his 1950s Chevy to 5th Avenue in Miramar, a broad boulevard with grand mansions where the Batista elite and the American moneybags lived.
If you ever go to Cuba, I recommend you visit Guevara’s grave and museum in Santa Clara, complete with a giant statue of the eternal revolutionary. There are murals of Che all over the island.
Cubans are also a kind of rainbow nation, with about 64% white people, 25% brown-skinned people and 10% identifying as Afro-Cuban. The population is estimated at just over 11 million.
Tropical communism
I attended a social event hosted by the minister of finance where there was lively music and dancing. When I told the minister that Cuba looked very different from the other communist state I knew, East Germany, he laughed exuberantly and proudly: “Yes, what we have is tropical communism. You can be a communist and be joyous too.”
It’s quite difficult in Cuba not to be just another typical tourist, to get to know the people and towns that aren’t served by tour agencies. But that is the real Cuba.
I must say, in Havana I got tired of the street and café orchestras playing and singing the beautiful Guantanamera the moment they saw a tourist.
I visited a cigar factory and was disappointed when they told me that the women don’t really roll the cigars on their thighs. I left with a box of Cohiba and a box of Montecristo, which would have cost me the price of a small car at home. I smoked cigars for months, and later the then Cuban ambassador in Pretoria occasionally replenished my stock.
I ate and drank very well in Cuba — Cuba Libre, just rum and Coke, and mojito: rum, sugar, mint, lime and white rum. The rum is excellent, and the beer, especially Cristal and Bucanero, quite drinkable.
I ate a lot of pork stews, beans and fish, but I fell in love with ropa vieja, a rich dish of shredded beef, tomatoes and peppers. The name means “old clothes” because that’s roughly how the cooked dish should look with its strands of meat and strips of green and red peppers. Its origins are Spanish but it has been a Cuban speciality for centuries.
I ate ropa vieja at the home of a junior official on the outskirts of Pinar del Río — with horse meat. I had eaten horse before in Lesotho, so it didn’t bother me much; maybe the horse died of old age. But I also ate the dish with beef in Havana and with pork in Santa Clara.
I just used chuck, which doesn’t allow for long strips but is ideal for slow cooking. The secret lies in the spices and condiments. It’s simple to make, and you can deviate from the recipe to your taste here and there.
Ropa vieja
Enough for 5 or 6
Ingredients
1 kg chuck
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large red and one large green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
2 teaspoons cumin
3 teaspoons paprika
A pinch each of ground cloves and allspice
¾ cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste (or just tomato sauce)
2 bay leaves
1 large piece of celery, halved lengthwise
1 large carrot, halved lengthwise
1 cup green olives
2 tablespoons capers
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
Tip: I didn’t have bell peppers on Sunday, so I used bottled “sweet jalapeno peppers” and “sweet piquanté peppers” from Checkers that were in my fridge. It doesn’t give the strip effect but I think it improved the taste. I suggest you do the same, about half a cup of each, because my picky family was full of praise for my ropa vieja on Sunday.
Method
- Heat olive oil until very hot in a heavy-bottomed pot. Rub salt and black pepper into the meat and brown it well on both sides. Then remove it from the pot, but keep the fat and drippings in the pot.
- Fry the onions and garlic in the oil and fat until they change colour. Add the two types of peppers and spices and keep on the heat for about 5 minutes. Add the wine and scrape the bottom of the pot so the bits that stick mix with the rest. Then add the chicken broth, crushed tomatoes, and tomato paste/sauce and the bay leaves. Let it cook for a few minutes.
- Put the meat back in the pot and cover it completely, also add the celery and carrot. Let it simmer for just short of four hours on very low heat. Take the meat out and shred it with two forks, put it back in the pot and add the olives and capers.
- Let it simmer for at least another half hour with the lid off so the sauce thickens. Stir in the parsley and check if it needs more salt and black pepper. Remove the celery, carrot and bones.
And there you have it: rich, tasty and relatively cheap. With rice and/or beans.
Disfruta la comida! Cuba es la mejor!
♦ VWB ♦
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