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Everyone’s favorite, though, is probably mamey, a fruit with a rough brown exterior, a sweet red flesh, and a single shiny black pit. Excellent as ice cream. If you have a really good meal, you can tell the chef that “Eso te quedó mamey,” which means “This thing you cooked is awesome!”
Chatinos are thick green plantain slices, fried once, smashed into flat disks and deep fried again in oil. An essential part of Cuban meals. Also called tostones. Mariquitas are fried chips made from the same plantains.
Quimbombó is an Afro-Cuban word for okra, which comes from Africa and became a staple in Cuban cooking, as it did wherever African slaves existed. Originally spelled quingombó, it is one of the main ingredients in, and probably gives its name to, gumbo, a stew that has been a part of life in Louisiana for hundreds of years. Fufú is an Afro-Cuban word for ripe plantains, mashed to a pulp and slightly seasoned, formed into balls, and added to quimbombó when cooked as a stew. It can also be made with ñame.
Snacks and Desserts
Everybody loves a little caramelo (candy) now and then. Maybe a chambelona (a lollipop) will do. Gaceñiga, merenguitos, pirulí (a type of lollipop), maní garapiñao, caramelos “rompe quijá” (jawbreakers), granizado, durofrío, coquitos, raspadura, masarreal, marquesitas, and señoritas, these are all sweet treats that are very popular in Cuba.
If you are “a punto de caramelo” (you are “about to become candy” or “about to become caramelized”) then you are ready for action, ready to go, and alert. The phrase is a cooking term when using syrup to make sweets or desserts. As a cook heats the syrup, it passes through several phases until it gets to that point when it is about to “become caramelized,” which for certain sweets, desserts, and candies has to be just right. So, when cooking, if the food comes out “a punto de caramelo” then it is absolutely perfect and delicious.
If you can’t find caramelos, perhaps you can eat some churros, a very popular confection made with fried dough and traditionally eaten with sugar and hot chocolate. Not exclusively Cuban, but loved by Cubans nonetheless. It is the sort of thing that is delicious and which will put you into a diabetic coma if you’re not careful. Everybody loves churros!
Sugar cane juice has many names in different parts of the world, such as caldo de caña in Brazil and nuoc mia in Vietnam. In Cuba and other parts of Latin America, it is called guarapo. Obviously very sweet. Pleasant to drink when freshly squeezed. Guarapo is also a colloquial term for booze, and guarapeta means “drunkenness.” “Pepito had a major guarapeta the other night in South Beach!” Guarapote, with an “o” instead of an “e,” means a “big guarapo.”
Guayaba (guava) is a very popular fruit served as a dessert in Cuba, often with cream cheese. Pan con timba
is a guava and cream cheese sandwich. Boniato, the native Taíno word for the sweet potato or yam, is one of the most important of the Taíno food staples and is still used in everyday Cuban cooking. It is used to make a very sweet, very tasty dessert called boniatillo.
Other well-known desserts – such as flan (a very sweet caramel pudding), arroz con leche (a sweet rice pudding made with rice, milk, and sugar), and tres leches (“three milks,” a spongy cake made with evaporated milk, condensed milk, and whipped cream) – are very popular all over Latin America, including Cuba. The Cuban versions of these popular desserts should not be missed.
