Cuban food questions....PLEASE HELP?!
* What is typically served (examples)
* What time do cubans usually eat -breakfast -lunch -dinner
* Whats the main meal of the day? (almeurzo o cena?)
Answers: Ok, im doing a research thing about cuban food. I need to know:
* What is typically served (examples)
* What time do cubans usually eat -breakfast -lunch -dinner
* Whats the main meal of the day? (almeurzo o cena?)
I lived in Cuba briefly on a humanitarian mission. The food is purchased with money and ration coupons. If you are wealthy and a foreinger, there are stores you can go to to buy better products. Many people, particularly but not limited to those living outside of the cities, have their own gardens and chickens, which supplements their menu greatly. Don't pay attention to sites like Wikipedia which discuss Cuban cuisine...these foods simply aren't eaten by everyday people in modern Cuba. Not only can they not afford the ingredients, the ingredients may not be available even if they could afford them. In three months, I saw beef ONCE, and it was very poor.
Many people eat just one meal late mid day, but many eat three meals a day just like here.
Meat: Hard to come by. You may have ration coupons for it, but the butchers always seem to be out of it. Primarily meat is pork, with a little chicken also available. Meat is often added to other dishes more as a flavoring than anything. Meats are mostly cooked by grilling or pan frying. We did see some stews.
Fish: Fish is easy to find in fishing areas. The local fish isn't as white as tilapia but it is similar to it.
Vegetables and fruit: Some city dwellers can rarely afford fresh veggies, but they are fairly plentiful if you live outside of the city. Farmers bring produce to the cities and sell them for cash in many small farmers markets. We were given lots of potatoes, (grilled, fried or mashed) corn, avocados, yucca and green salads. The green salads were much like ours, with carrots, tomato and radishes. Common fruits were oranges, bananas, red bananas, plantains and coconuts.
Seasonings: Pretty much just salt, onions, garlic and something like mild oregano. Once in a while you do see a bit of cumin.
Eggs/dairy: We ate a lot of eggs but saw very little dairy. Keeping cows in Cuba is just too difficult and expensive. Small anounts of milk are rationed out to very young children only.
Beer: There are many many brands of Cuban beer and liquor. None are good. Mojitos, AKA the Cuba Libre, are plentiful. Alcohol consumption seems to be pretty high.
Beans and Rice: Beans and rice reign supreme. Beans are often cooked with bits of pork and some finely chopped onion. Black beans are the most comonly seen. Rice is most commonly boiled.
Bread: Commonly used for toast and sandwiches. Nice chewy crust, soft inside.
Breakfast: We ate lots of eggs served with rice or toast as well as whatever was leftover from dinner. Toast was most often served with marmalade or jam, as butter can be hard to come by and expensive in the city. Some mornings you get rice and black beans. If you're lucky (wealthy or a farmer) fruit is often served with breakfast. We were served tons of oranges and bananas. We were also given a lot of fresh fruit juice.
Lunch: A typical cold lunch is a wafer thin piece of cooked ham on a roll. Lunches are often warm, and common dishes are rice and beans, black bean soup, and tamales. A rare treat is a hot pulled pork sandwich with a tomato based sauce. Lunch is most often eaten on the fly, much as it is here. Very sweet fruit flavored soft drinks are popular, particularly with the kids.
Dinner: Dinner is the main meal, just like here, probably due to the fact anyone who is able bodied works all day. A special occasion dinner might have a green salad, grilled chicken or pork or pan seared fish, refried beans cooked with a bit of pork, boiled rice and/ or a mashed potato or yucca dish, grilled fresh vegetables, maybe some fried plantains and fresh fruit. People are expected to work, so they don't have time to sit at home and watch over food that needs ot cook for hours and hours. That said, we did see some stews made entirely of vegetables or vegetables with bits of meat or fish.
A simple dinner may consist of rice with bits of sausage and beans on the side.
Deserts: Sweetened fruit, fried dough sprinkled with suger or cinnamon sugar (churros), flan, custards made with fruit, guava paste
wikipedia.com and search for cuisine of Cuba
I have a friend who is cuban. They eat a lot of rice and beans, fried plantains, breaded steak, yuca (boiled), roast pork leg stuffed with chorizo. Their main meal is a late lunch/early dinner. They usually eat just a light breakfast and then the one main meal late afternoon. And they seem to snack a lot during the day. My favorite is the steak sandwich. They marinate thinly sliced steak in garlic and olive oil, grill it, serve it on fresh rolls with provolone cheese and pickles. Then the grill the whole sandwich on a sandwich press (like a panini grill). Yummy!