B2 · Upper Intermediate
12 min
food culturegeopoliticshistorylatin america
The Taste of the Blockade: Cuba, Food, and the Politics of Hunger
El Sabor del Bloqueo: Cuba, la Comida y la Política del Hambre
Mexico announces a new humanitarian aid shipment to Cuba amid worsening conditions linked to the U.S. oil blockade. Fletcher and Octavio go deep: what Cuba actually eats, where that cuisine comes from, and what a nation's plate reveals about its history and politics.
México anuncia un nuevo envío de ayuda humanitaria a Cuba en respuesta al empeoramiento de las condiciones económicas ligadas al bloqueo petrolero estadounidense. Fletcher y Octavio van al fondo de la historia: qué come Cuba, de dónde viene esa cocina y qué nos dice el plato de una nación sobre su historia y su política.
6 essential B2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| el racionamiento | rationing | La libreta de racionamiento regula la distribución de alimentos básicos en Cuba desde hace décadas. |
| el sofrito | sofrito (base sauce of cooked aromatics) | El sofrito de cebolla, ajo y tomate es la base de muchos platos cubanos y caribeños. |
| resolver | to resolve / to make do (Cuban usage: to improvise and get by) | Cuando no hay ingredientes, los cubanos siempre encuentran la manera de resolver y preparar algo rico. |
| el paladar | private restaurant (in a family home, Cuban term) | Los paladares aparecieron en Cuba en los años noventa como pequeños restaurantes privados en casas particulares. |
| el abastecimiento | supply / provisioning | La crisis afectó el abastecimiento de alimentos en toda la región. |
| la herramienta de presión | pressure tool / lever | Las sanciones económicas se usan frecuentemente como herramienta de presión en los conflictos internacionales. |
Picture an island with some of the richest agricultural land in the Caribbean, surrounded by sea, and people are going hungry.
That is Cuba right now, and the reason has nothing to do with the soil.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Esta semana, la presidenta mexicana Claudia Sheinbaum anunció un nuevo envío de ayuda humanitaria a Cuba, y ese anuncio nos dice mucho sobre la situación en la isla.
This week, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum announced a new humanitarian aid shipment to Cuba, and that announcement tells us a lot about the situation on the island.
And the context here matters.
The U.S.
oil blockade, which is separate from the older embargo, has been strangling Cuba's ability to import fuel, which in turn is wrecking food production, refrigeration, transportation.
The whole chain.
Mira, cuando no hay combustible, no funciona casi nada.
Look, when there's no fuel, almost nothing works.
No funciona el transporte de alimentos del campo a la ciudad, no funcionan los sistemas de riego, no funcionan las cámaras frigoríficas.
Food transport from the countryside to the city doesn't work, irrigation systems don't work, cold storage doesn't work.
Cuba tiene una crisis alimentaria real, no exagerada.
Cuba has a real food crisis, not an exaggerated one.
Which brings me to the question I kept turning over this week: what does Cuba actually eat?
Because I realized I could describe Cuban foreign policy in some detail, and I'd struggle to describe a Cuban meal beyond rice and beans and some vague notion of roast pork.
Esa es una pregunta muy honesta, Fletcher, y la respuesta es fascinante.
That's a very honest question, Fletcher, and the answer is fascinating.
La cocina cubana es el resultado de siglos de mezcla: la tradición española, la herencia africana de los esclavos, y elementos indígenas taínos que todavía existen en ingredientes como la yuca y el boniato.
Cuban cuisine is the result of centuries of mixing: Spanish tradition, the African heritage of enslaved people, and indigenous Taíno elements that still exist in ingredients like yuca and sweet potato.
Three layers, essentially.
And when you put those together, what do you get at the center of it?
El sofrito.
Sofrito.
Es la base de casi todo en la cocina cubana, y en muchas cocinas del Caribe y América Latina.
It's the base of almost everything in Cuban cuisine, and in many Caribbean and Latin American cuisines.
Cebolla, ajo, pimiento, tomate, aceite.
Onion, garlic, pepper, tomato, oil.
Cuándo cocinas eso junto, creas algo que es más que la suma de sus partes.
When you cook those together, you create something that is more than the sum of its parts.
The sofrito is interesting because it's also the base of Spanish cocina, right?
So you can trace a direct line from a kitchen in Seville to a kitchen in Havana.
Sí, aunque el sofrito cubano tiene sus diferencias.
Yes, though Cuban sofrito has its differences.
Hay más ajo, los pimientos son distintos, y sobre todo hay algo que se llama el sazón, una mezcla de especias que le da a la cocina cubana un carácter propio que no es exactamente español ni caribeño, sino cubano.
There's more garlic, the peppers are different, and above all there's something called sazón, a spice blend that gives Cuban cooking a character that's not exactly Spanish or Caribbean, but Cuban.
Now here's what I want to dig into, because there's a history here that I think most people don't know.
Cuba was, before the revolution, one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America.
And that wealth showed up on the plate.
Claro.
Of course.
En los años cincuenta, La Habana era una ciudad de restaurantes sofisticados, de hoteles de lujo, de una clase media que comía bien.
In the 1950s, Havana was a city of sophisticated restaurants, luxury hotels, a middle class that ate well.
Había una gastronomía española muy refinada, pero también influencia francesa, estadounidense.
There was very refined Spanish gastronomy, but also French and American influence.
Era una ciudad cosmopolita.
It was a cosmopolitan city.
And then 1959 happens, and everything shifts.
I don't want to turn this into a political debate, but food tells the story of what changed in a way that statistics don't.
Es que la revolución cambió el sistema de distribución de alimentos completamente.
The revolution completely changed the food distribution system.
Se estableció la libreta de abastecimiento, que es la cartilla de racionamiento, y esa libreta existe todavía hoy, sesenta y cinco años después.
The libreta de abastecimiento was established, which is the ration booklet, and that booklet still exists today, sixty-five years later.
Eso te dice todo.
That tells you everything.
Sixty-five years of rationing.
That's longer than most countries have existed in their current form.
Y dentro de esos sesenta y cinco años, hay un período que los cubanos recuerdan con más horror que ningún otro.
And within those sixty-five years, there is a period that Cubans remember with more horror than any other.
Se llama el Período Especial, que comenzó en 1991 cuando desapareció la Unión Soviética y Cuba perdió su principal fuente de petróleo y de subsidios económicos.
It's called the Special Period, which began in 1991 when the Soviet Union disappeared and Cuba lost its main source of oil and economic subsidies.
This is the part I find genuinely extraordinary.
The Cuban government announced that the economy was entering a 'Special Period in Time of Peace,' which is a remarkable phrase.
It's the language of wartime rationing applied to peacetime collapse.
La gente adelgazó de manera dramática.
People lost weight dramatically.
Se habla de que el cubano promedio perdió entre cinco y siete kilos en pocos años.
It's said that the average Cuban lost between five and seven kilos in just a few years.
No por hacer dieta, sino porque simplemente no había comida suficiente.
Not from dieting, but simply because there wasn't enough food.
Five to seven kilos across an entire population.
That's not a shortage.
That's a famine by another name.
Y sin embargo, lo que ocurrió después es algo que los nutricionistas y los sociólogos estudian todavía.
And yet, what happened next is something nutritionists and sociologists still study.
Los cubanos empezaron a cultivar comida en cualquier espacio disponible: balcones, azoteas, solares abandonados.
Cubans started growing food in any available space: balconies, rooftops, abandoned lots.
Nació una agricultura urbana masiva por pura necesidad.
A massive urban agriculture movement was born out of pure necessity.
That's the thing about food scarcity and human ingenuity.
They always seem to find each other.
I covered a period of economic collapse in Argentina in the early 2000s, and the same thing happened there on a different scale.
En Cuba, esa agricultura urbana se convirtió en algo más permanente.
In Cuba, that urban agriculture became something more permanent.
Los jardines urbanos, que se llaman 'organoponicos', producen hoy una parte significativa de las verduras que se consumen en La Habana.
Urban gardens, called 'organoponics,' today produce a significant portion of the vegetables consumed in Havana.
Es uno de los experimentos de agricultura urbana más interesantes del mundo.
It's one of the most interesting urban agriculture experiments in the world.
I want to come back to the cuisine itself for a moment, because I think we're doing the food a disservice by focusing only on the scarcity.
What's the dish, if you're sitting down in Havana on a good day, that defines the culture?
La ropa vieja.
Ropa vieja.
Es el plato nacional por excelencia, y el nombre ya es una historia.
It's the national dish par excellence, and the name is already a story.
Carne de ternera o de cerdo cocinada tan lentamente, tan largamente, que se deshace en fibras, como tela vieja.
Beef or pork cooked so slowly, so long, that it falls apart into fibers, like old cloth.
Se mezcla con sofrito, con comino, con pimientos.
It's mixed with sofrito, cumin, peppers.
Es un plato humilde que se hizo sofisticado.
It's a humble dish that became sophisticated.
Old clothes.
The dish is literally called old clothes.
There's something in that name that speaks to making something beautiful out of what you have.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Y ese espíritu, esa idea de transformar lo que tienes en algo rico, en algo que vale la pena comer, es fundamental en la cocina cubana.
And that spirit, that idea of transforming what you have into something rich, something worth eating, is fundamental to Cuban cuisine.
Y también, para ser honesto, en la mentalidad cubana en general.
And also, to be honest, to the Cuban mentality in general.
Now let's talk about Mexico in this picture, because the relationship between Mexico and Cuba is one of the most interesting and underreported stories in the Western Hemisphere.
México es el único país latinoamericano que nunca rompió sus relaciones diplomáticas con Cuba después de la revolución.
Mexico is the only Latin American country that never broke diplomatic relations with Cuba after the revolution.
Ni durante los años más tensos de la Guerra Fría.
Not even during the most tense years of the Cold War.
Hay una razón histórica para eso: Fidel Castro partió hacia Cuba desde el puerto de Tuxpan, en México, en 1956.
There's a historical reason for that: Fidel Castro departed for Cuba from the port of Tuxpan, in Mexico, in 1956.
Which means Mexico has always been, at some level, implicated in what Cuba became.
That's a complicated position to be in.
Muy complicada.
Very complicated.
Y la ayuda que Sheinbaum anuncia ahora tiene esa historia detrás.
And the aid Sheinbaum announces now carries that history behind it.
No es solo una decisión política de este gobierno.
It's not just a political decision of this government.
Es la continuación de una relación que tiene casi setenta años.
It's the continuation of a relationship that's almost seventy years old.
And the food component of that aid matters more than people think.
When a country can't import fuel, it can't run the machinery that processes food, can't move it to where it's needed.
So fuel shortages become food shortages almost automatically.
Y eso nos lleva a una pregunta más profunda: ¿puede usarse la comida como arma política?
And that leads us to a deeper question: can food be used as a political weapon?
La historia dice que sí, desde los bloqueos de la Antigüedad hasta las sanciones modernas.
History says yes, from the blockades of antiquity to modern sanctions.
El hambre es una herramienta de presión muy poderosa.
Hunger is a very powerful tool of pressure.
Right, and the moral weight of that is something reasonable people genuinely disagree about.
The argument for the blockade is that it pressures a regime that has denied its own people political freedom.
The argument against is that the people going hungry aren't the ones making those decisions.
Esa tensión es real y no tiene una respuesta fácil.
That tension is real and has no easy answer.
Pero lo que sí es claro es que en Cuba ahora mismo, con o sin bloqueo, hay familias que no pueden alimentar a sus hijos con regularidad.
But what is clear is that in Cuba right now, with or without the blockade, there are families who can't feed their children regularly.
Y eso es difícil de justificar desde cualquier posición política.
And that's hard to justify from any political position.
Let me ask you something that I've been wondering.
Cuba has this incredible culinary tradition, these African and Spanish and indigenous roots.
What happens to a food culture when it's under pressure for decades?
Does it survive?
Sobrevive en la memoria, en la familia.
It survives in memory, in the family.
Hay recetas cubanas que las abuelas han guardado durante generaciones, incluso cuando no tenían los ingredientes para hacerlas.
There are Cuban recipes that grandmothers have kept for generations, even when they didn't have the ingredients to make them.
La gente sustituye, adapta, recuerda.
People substitute, adapt, remember.
La cocina es una forma de resistencia cultural también.
Cuisine is also a form of cultural resistance.
That's something I've noticed across every conflict zone I've ever worked in.
People hold onto food as identity when everything else is taken away.
I've sat in refugee camps where people were describing dishes they hadn't eaten in years, in extraordinary detail.
The recipe stays even when the kitchen is gone.
Y en Cuba hay otro fenómeno interesante.
And in Cuba there's another interesting phenomenon.
Con la apertura parcial al turismo en los años noventa, aparecieron los paladares, que son restaurantes privados en casas particulares.
With the partial opening to tourism in the 1990s, paladares appeared, which are private restaurants in private homes.
Fue la primera grieta en el sistema económico estatal, y curiosamente, esa grieta fue la comida.
It was the first crack in the state economic system, and curiously, that crack was food.
The paladares.
I've read about those.
Named after a character in a Brazilian telenovela, wasn't it?
A woman who builds a restaurant empire from nothing?
Exactamente, de la telenovela 'Vale Todo'.
Exactly, from the telenovela 'Vale Todo.' And the fact that Cubans adopted that word for their first private restaurants says a lot about the island's sense of humor and popular culture.
Y el hecho de que los cubanos hayan adoptado esa palabra para sus primeros restaurantes privados dice mucho sobre el sentido del humor y la cultura popular de la isla.
Before we wrap, there's something you said earlier I keep thinking about.
You used the phrase 'resolver' when you were talking about Cuban improvisation in the kitchen.
I know that word means 'to solve' in Spanish, but it sounded like it meant something more specific when you said it.
Buena observación.
Good catch.
En Cuba, 'resolver' tiene un significado propio.
In Cuba, 'resolver' has its own meaning.
No es solo solucionar un problema.
It's not just solving a problem.
Es el arte de conseguir lo que necesitas con los medios que tienes, de improvisar, de encontrar una salida.
It's the art of getting what you need with the means you have, of improvising, of finding a way out.
Es casi una filosofía de vida que tiene su propio verbo.
It's almost a philosophy of life that has its own verb.
So when a Cuban cook runs out of beef and makes ropa vieja with whatever's available, they're not just cooking.
They're resolving.
Sí, y ese verbo, 'resolver', resume décadas de historia cubana mejor que cualquier libro de texto.
Yes, and that verb, 'resolver,' summarizes decades of Cuban history better than any textbook.
Lo que me parece fascinante es que un solo verbo pueda contener tanto: la escasez, el ingenio, la dignidad, la ironía.
What I find fascinating is that a single verb can contain so much: scarcity, ingenuity, dignity, irony.
El idioma a veces hace eso.
Language sometimes does that.
That's a good place to end.
An island with extraordinary culinary roots, a food culture that survives everything thrown at it, and a verb that explains how.
Next time someone serves me ropa vieja, I'll think about all of that.