The Love for Cooking in Baracoa

Baracoa, the First Cuban village, located on the north-east of the island, you can find traditional food: Here I present an interview  to the writer Inalvis Guilbeaux Rodríguez, author of the book: Sabor de Baracoa, in which she describes how they learn to prepare such delicious dishes.

Her interest in cooking recipes dates back to the 1950s when she was a child and her grandmother used to prepare the Yerba Buena a dish known as Calalú and the palmito made with cod and Swiss chard leaves.
The book published in 2013 shows recipes and photographs of the typical dishes mostly made with milk and butter flavors of coconut.

"Thanks to the magic and inspiration of the painter Jehovanny Rodríguez Sanamé, who made the illustrations and photos of the book from my research started in the 90’s when traditional products such as coconut in this region of Guantanamo had a great acceptance during the economic crisis in Cuba following the Special Period."

The 80-years-old researcher tells how the food, drinks and liquors from the Spanish, French and African regions are incorporated into the Baracoa’s cuisine, as well as the aborigines settled in this area, bathed by the rivers and the Caribbean Sea.

"From the Cuban Aborigines, we knew how to made the casabe and hayaca; from the French we learned how to chop the meat and the customs at the table; of the mambises with their mixture of Africans we still have drinks such as canchancara (brandy with honey) and saoco (brandy with coconut water); and the Spanish stew, dish par excellence of the cuisine in Cuba.

The retired teacher and graduate in History and Social Sciences in 1996 after teaching at the Municipal University Center and the Comprehensive Higher Course for Youth, shows her love for the traditions of her homeland, an incentive that she has developed from previous publications to the book Sabor de Baracoa, y su cocina tradicional, from the Association of Baracoa and San Agustín, the first two villages founded by the Spaniards in Cuba and the United States, respectively.

"I have created poetry and other research that attests to the transculturation process of this area and I refer to the publications The religious syncretism and the culinary art, in 1993 and The impact of the special period in the culinary art of Baracoa, in 2002".
Well, to visit Baracoa City is a great chance to taste this traditional food