In Pinar del Río, when my uncle’s family sacrificed a pig, all those who showed up to help chop up and fry its considerably thick layer of fat into odd-sized squares got to keep a portion. Raised on palmiche, the acorn-like seeds of Cuba’s palm trees, pineapple scraps and mango peel, my uncle’s pigs enjoyed life and grew fat: at least once a year, they supplied a half dozen neighboring families with pork rinds to flavor their beans, rice and other foods for at least a month or two. In Cuba’s Special Period, there were few alternatives. Garlic, onions and peppers had rarely been available under Soviet-backed Communist rule, let alone all at the same time. This matters since Cubans like me had never eaten “Cuban” food without these basic ingredients. Cumin, bay leaf, Cuban oregano and thyme—essential to my US-Cuban family’s pinareño recipe for beans—were virtually unknown to cooks and diners alike for most of the Revolution. What I had never tasted, however, were chicharrones this naturally good! One piece in a bowl of otherwise bland corn meal infused it with a kitchen full of spices. DECEMBER 1996.
