overnight muse

May 20

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May 19

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Apr 25

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Apr 06

Not for love or money …. will I eat that again (6 mar 2013) A tale of “50 shades of bland” I have been in Cuba for a week now. While I absolutely love the music and the people, I am totally and utterly dismayed by the food. I was warned that I would tire of the food quickly in Cuba. Wow, my friends weren’t wrong!  One has to wonder how an entire population of incredibly passionate Latinos doesn’t protest more about the lacklustre food. Does no one here have any culinary imagination? The only national cuisine I can find is various forms of bland. The main dish of choice, for example, is bland fish with rice and salad. Or you could have ‘bland chicken’ or ‘bland pork’ (with rice and salad of course). The worst offender is the ‘bland and pasty lobster’. Yeah, you guessed it … with rice and salad. Bland white rice pellets. My personal favourite is the unimaginative bland salad, which typically consists of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. When the Cubans go ‘salad crazy’, you might get a bit of grated beetroot or pimento and/or grated cabbage on top. Woohoo – go nuts people! I am a food adventurer when I travel. I have some basic rules about kitchen hygiene but not really many rules about what I am eating – except that I want to eat what the locals are eating. I will try most anything once as long as there is no hint of mishandling of animals and I am not eating anything I might consider to be a pet. Oh, and I try not to eat insects (at least not intentionally). My rule is to always try to look at the kitchen. If it is clean and their food preparation looks kosher (not verbatim but high quality) then “I’m in”. That usually means better quality food, local produce, interesting local flavours and better hygiene because of high turnover. None of that has applied in Cuba. Basically, it has been extremely difficult (seemingly impossible) to find good local cheap eateries. Apparently there is some reasonable food to be had at some of the resorts. This is definitely not my scene, being a chica that prefers family homestays. And so, I am suffering… in my opinion unnecessarily. If indeed the intelligence info I have gathered on the resorts around Varadero is true, it seems that the only difference between the resort restaurants and the local ones is an imaginative chef. There are vegetables, fruits, herbs, fish, shellfish, meat and dairy all available in the restaurants around the island. It is just that the local chefs don’t seem to have much artistic flair or ingenuity. Obviously, Masterchef has yet to arrive in Cuba.  This country seriously needs a ‘gastronomic Yoda’ to shake up the food scene here. I was in Chile and then briefly Peru just before arriving in Cuba. The contrast between these countries’ cuisines and Cuba’s could not be starker. Both Chile and especially Peru have excellent cuisine available. In Chile, I had one of the best winery lunches I have ever laid lip to. That is saying something coming from an Aussie who frequents the wineries across multiple states in Australia. Peru, in my opinion, is the next national cuisine that will take the world by storm. Let’s put it this way, I went to Lima for two days en route from Santiago de Chile to Cuba just so I could eat there.  It was lip smacking good and absolutely worth going through immigration twice in 2 days. Enough said.  Without a doubt, Cuba has finally forced an important travel decision upon me. I will never be able to travel somewhere (at least not for more than a few days) that doesn’t have their culinary shit together. I just cannot survive very long eating the same old gruel (or meat or fish dish) totally lacking in flavour and imagination. While Cuba’s music and people have captured my heart and soul, their food has left me cold (and sick and shaking in a corner). Alas Cuba, until you pick up your gastronomic game, I am afraid that I shall not be spending much time on your shores again. A quick hop to La Habana to indulge in its culture and music is all I could fathom for fear of starvation. Let’s hope that when the truly antiquated US trade embargo is finally lifted the first thing that they import is some quality cooking shows. Jamie Oliver – you have a whole country in dire need of your gastronomic teachings.

Not for love or money …. will I eat that again

(6 mar 2013)


A tale of “50 shades of bland”

I have been in Cuba for a week now. While I absolutely love the music and the people, I am totally and utterly dismayed by the food. I was warned that I would tire of the food quickly in Cuba. Wow, my friends weren’t wrong!  One has to wonder how an entire population of incredibly passionate Latinos doesn’t protest more about the lacklustre food. Does no one here have any culinary imagination? The only national cuisine I can find is various forms of bland. The main dish of choice, for example, is bland fish with rice and salad. Or you could have ‘bland chicken’ or ‘bland pork’ (with rice and salad of course). The worst offender is the ‘bland and pasty lobster’. Yeah, you guessed it … with rice and salad. Bland white rice pellets. My personal favourite is the unimaginative bland salad, which typically consists of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. When the Cubans go ‘salad crazy’, you might get a bit of grated beetroot or pimento and/or grated cabbage on top. Woohoo – go nuts people!

I am a food adventurer when I travel. I have some basic rules about kitchen hygiene but not really many rules about what I am eating – except that I want to eat what the locals are eating. I will try most anything once as long as there is no hint of mishandling of animals and I am not eating anything I might consider to be a pet. Oh, and I try not to eat insects (at least not intentionally). My rule is to always try to look at the kitchen. If it is clean and their food preparation looks kosher (not verbatim but high quality) then “I’m in”. That usually means better quality food, local produce, interesting local flavours and better hygiene because of high turnover. None of that has applied in Cuba. Basically, it has been extremely difficult (seemingly impossible) to find good local cheap eateries. Apparently there is some reasonable food to be had at some of the resorts. This is definitely not my scene, being a chica that prefers family homestays. And so, I am suffering… in my opinion unnecessarily. If indeed the intelligence info I have gathered on the resorts around Varadero is true, it seems that the only difference between the resort restaurants and the local ones is an imaginative chef. There are vegetables, fruits, herbs, fish, shellfish, meat and dairy all available in the restaurants around the island. It is just that the local chefs don’t seem to have much artistic flair or ingenuity. Obviously, Masterchef has yet to arrive in Cuba.  This country seriously needs a ‘gastronomic Yoda’ to shake up the food scene here.

I was in Chile and then briefly Peru just before arriving in Cuba. The contrast between these countries’ cuisines and Cuba’s could not be starker. Both Chile and especially Peru have excellent cuisine available. In Chile, I had one of the best winery lunches I have ever laid lip to. That is saying something coming from an Aussie who frequents the wineries across multiple states in Australia. Peru, in my opinion, is the next national cuisine that will take the world by storm. Let’s put it this way, I went to Lima for two days en route from Santiago de Chile to Cuba just so I could eat there.  It was lip smacking good and absolutely worth going through immigration twice in 2 days. Enough said.

 Without a doubt, Cuba has finally forced an important travel decision upon me. I will never be able to travel somewhere (at least not for more than a few days) that doesn’t have their culinary shit together. I just cannot survive very long eating the same old gruel (or meat or fish dish) totally lacking in flavour and imagination. While Cuba’s music and people have captured my heart and soul, their food has left me cold (and sick and shaking in a corner). Alas Cuba, until you pick up your gastronomic game, I am afraid that I shall not be spending much time on your shores again. A quick hop to La Habana to indulge in its culture and music is all I could fathom for fear of starvation. Let’s hope that when the truly antiquated US trade embargo is finally lifted the first thing that they import is some quality cooking shows. Jamie Oliver – you have a whole country in dire need of your gastronomic teachings.

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