Pre-Castro Cuba: Havana Salsa

By JULIETTE ROSSANT With Miami's Cuban population ecstatically waiting for news of Fidel Castro's imminent demise, Havana Salsa: Stories & Recipes (Atria 2006) by Cuban-born food writer Viviana Carballo offers a nostalgic and tragic look at what many Cubans lost when he came to power in the form of a coming-of-age memoir set in Havana. Viviana had an eccentric father, Carlos, an astrologer, healer, and womanizer; her mother Sylvia came from a sprawling, equally eccentric family. The house Viviana grew up in held a collection of characters including an ex-circus performer, a numbers runner, and an ex-madame. Family life revolved around her voracious father, a cook, and the food that various members of the family and extended family prepared and adored. The vignettes are short and capture a child's or youth's point a view. Carlos drives Viviana all over Havana in search of perfect dishes: We searched for the perfect frita stand [Cuba's version of hamburger] in each neighborhood, even though we favored Sebastian's located on the corner of Zapita and Paseo. For stuffed potatoes we had to go across the bay to Guanabacoa, sandwiches, Cuban sandwiches, of course, were best made by Paco at 10th and 23rd. We visited the Central Market and often had a lunch of lobster in mayonaise in a nearby bodégon. But we favored kiosks and stands rather than established eateries, the more modest the better. (p.21) Lucky for us, the recipes for Poached Lobster with Homemade Lobster Mayonaise (p. 28) and Frita Habanera (p. 74) are included. Viviana explores the amazing world of Dulce, the family cook, who practiced the Carribean religion, Santeria, and told stories of dieties while cooking the family's meals: One of her specialties was fritters, and she never made calabaza fritters without telling the story of how Ochun, the goddess of love, came to love Calabaza. Suffice to say that money, talking calabazas, drunkeness, and adultery played a role. (p.46) Calabazas is a kind of Carribean pumpkin cooked in a sweet fritter (the recipe is provided -- though, sadly, not the whole story of Ochun). These are wonderful passages that capture the spirit of Havana of the 1940s and 1950s. Intertwined with events, people, and relationships is glorious food. Havana Salsa is also a coming of age story -- Viviana loses her virginity to an American Jewish gangster, her parents divorce, and she is sent away to boarding school in Pennsylvania. Eventually, she meets and marries Roberto, a philosophy professor: Over helados tostado – a mini baked Alaska, a Carmelo speciality – and capitolio, a sort of chocolate cupcake with a heavy swirl of meringue on top, our eyes met, and I was immediately smitten. (p. 180) Overall, as a food memoir, it is the roast pork and plantain mash that are most memorable -- yet, amidst adventure, mischief, and food is a sense of impending doom: Castro is coming to sweep all decadence and sweet and savory flavors away. This book reads like a magical realist's cookbook, one step away from a film about a forgotten Havana --like the upcoming The Lost City, set in Havana of the 1950s, about "a family as diverse as Cuba," written by Andy Garcia and Guillermo Cabrera Infante, a film critic -- and friend of Viviana's husband Roberto. (Click here to see the trailer.) Book details: Publisher Amazon.com Barnes & Noble Previous articles: [Cookbook Reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, cookbooks --> back to superchefblog