Keith Flanagan
| Special for USA TODAY
Now that nonstop flights from the USA are increasingly Havana-bound, curious Americans can explore the destinations’ estranged cuisine at its source — and yes, finally puff an authentic Cuban cigar. While the anticipation appears to be overblown (several airlines pulled out of routes to Cuba due to low demand), stateside curiosity is certainly piqued. So if you don’t make it over there, try sampling a little Havana here instead.
After the revolution of 1959, waves of exiled Cubans pooled in the USA, particularly in Florida, where new Cuban-Americans opened restaurants and markets to re-create the lost flavors of home. America’s Cuba aged differently than Castro’s, where the cuisine endured decades of inconsistency; communist rule controlled all restaurants for nearly half a century, while starting in the 1990s, an allowance for privately owned restaurants and businesses stumbled as the Soviet Union’s subsidies vanished, making ingredients increasingly hard to find and certain recipes harder to make.
In Miami’s Little Havana, as it was later called, homemakers held tight to the lingering recipes of mid-century Cuba. Fellow diaspora throughout the country — New Jersey, for example, was home to a Cuban community nicknamed Havana on the Hudson — were havens for classic dishes like ropa vieja (stewed beef and vegetables) and arroz con pollo (rice with chicken).
In America, the Cuban cuisine that prevailed was nostalgic, and nonetheless niche.
“Cuban food is comfort food,” says chef Ricardo Barreras, co-owner of Brooklyn’s Pilar Cuban Eatery, whose parents came to the USA from Camagüey, Cuba. He roots his cuisine and perspective in Miami’s Little Havana of the 1970s, where and when he grew up. The bubbling of sofrito (sauce), beer, sautéed chicken, and bouillon (broth) drew him to cook by his grandfather’s side — for a swig of beer, he admits.
Little Havana’s well-known Versailles Restaurant is a family affair which opened in 1971 by Felipe Valls directly on the popular thoroughfare, Calle Ocho. It’s now owned by Felipe Valls Jr., who still owns up to his father’s original ethos: to serve the community with old-timer dishes you’d expect, like oxtail stew, at prices everyone can agree with. At Denver’s Cuba Cuba Cafe & Bar, owner Kristy Socarrás Bigelow took a page from her seniors, incorporating recipes directly from her grandmother’s cookbook. In Portland, Ore., chef John Connell-Maribona honors heritage at Pambiche with recipes once used by his mother, her sister and their mother (his grandmother).
It’s a great day to get Cuban food in Cuba, surely. But great Cuban cuisine calls the USA home, too. Browse the gallery above to see where Cuban food is cooking across the country.
Source link : https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/experience/food-and-wine/2017/04/17/cuban-restaurants-america/100415138/
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Publish date : 2017-04-17 03:00:00
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