AP Blog: Living on Cuba’s Rationed Food

AP Havana Bureau Chief Anita Snow is spending the month of June living on the ”libreta,” a ration book for food consumption in Cuba. Here’s her story.

HAVANA — Cubans don’t use a lot of seasoning in their food, rejecting the spicy dishes of other Caribbean islands like Jamaica and the eye-watering, tongue-burning jalapeno and other chilies of Mexico.

But they simply must have a little onion, and a few cloves of garlic, a generous sprinkle of salt and maybe some vinegar to make their traditional dishes taste just right.


With the opening of supply and demand farmers markets in Cuba in 1994, getting those products to liven up dishes isn’t as hard as it once was.

Salt already comes with the heavily subsidized food ration.

The larger of scores of farmers markets scattered around Havana sell onions and garlic, which are the first products most Cubans buy if they have a few extra pesos.

NY Times