2023-12-25 12:29:54
As they were Christmas celebrations in CubaChristmas Eve and the New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Eve parties before being “liberated from imperialism”?
How many people are there on the Island over 72 or 73 years old who can remember well, in great detail, those celebrations almost prehistoric?
Both questions take on particular relevance during these holidays, because if In 2022, Cubans had a disastrous Christmas Evethis year 2023 will be the worst in living memory.
They will be very few ordinary families in Cubaless than in 2022, those who will be able to enjoy the traditional roast pig in the Christmas Evethe only dinner with that name on the Island, where at night you “eat”, not “dinner”.
And it is not conceived without bringing roast pork to the table, just as it is not conceived Christmas Eve in Argentina and Uruguay without the beef grills, or in Venezuela without the hallacas (tamales stuffed with multiple ingredients). Neither do Brazilians have a good time without stuffed turkey, as in Chile, Ecuador, or Peru, nor do Mexicans and Central Americans without their ancestral tamales.
To make matters worse, this year Cuban families not connected to the ruling oligarchy via dictatorship, family, or MSMEs will not be able to put a “roasted chicken” on the table instead of the absentee pork. There are not enough chickens.
Less pork and chicken than ever in 65 years
The Cuban pork production It collapsed by 92.5% in five years, from almost 200,000 tons in 2017 to 15,000 tons in 2022. Something never seen in a country not affected by a natural disaster, swine fever or a war.
And in 2023 production will not even reach 11,000 tons, according to Yusleidys Pérez, director of the Pig Research Institute (to investigate what?). That is less than half of the 26,000 tons in 2022, for a population of 10.7 million inhabitants.
Since the regime does not have foreign currency to import enough pork, prices are skyrocketing. In December 2022, one pound of Pork Meat It used to cost between 350 and 500 pesos, now it is between 600 and 700 pesos. And if it is imported it does not go below 1,000 pesos, half of a minimum wage.
Regarding passing chicken as pork and fooling the stomach, not even that. Last September (2023) imports of frozen chicken from the USA They collapsed by 66%. And in October they fell again, reaching their lowest level since June 2020, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
In other words, there is less and less chicken in Cuba. In shopping malls it is inaccessible, and on the black market they cost like ground gold. On social networks you can read advertisements like this: “Boneless pork leg, five pounds, at 4,300 Cuban pesos.” Or this one: “Boxes of chops, ten pounds, 10,500 pesos.” It is as if a Cuban paid $5,966 in a Miami supermarket (314% of his minimum wage of $1,906) for six pounds of pork. Please!
Before, families gathered together had dinner and had a great time.
But let’s now take a step back in time and observe what the celebration of the Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Cuba, before the Castro plague fell on him. I am an eyewitness to that. At Christmas Eve dinner, families, no matter how large, managed to ensure that no one was missing. And they celebrated together with the television, a radio or a record player with dance music.
The suckling pig or leg began to be roasted in the morning, or it could be ordered already roasted from a restaurant. They paid it together, or someone in the family.
Something very peculiar, folkloric was that from the morning and during the afternoon of the 24th it was very pleasant to hear trios or duos in the streets with guitar in hand playing, singing, (and drinking a little free rum in every corner bar) . I can’t forget a delicious guaracha by Eliseo Grenet that they always sang that day, and that said: “There in Syria there is a Moorish woman / who has prettier eyes / than a charming star…”, and later she repeated the chorus: “When will he return/ Christmas Eve/ when will he return/ the piglet/ when will he return/ well roasted…”
I remember that the roast suckling pig was generally convoyed with congrí rice or white rice and black beans on the side, yuca with mojo, salad (tomatoes, lettuce, etc.), or also green plantain tostones, and plantain fufú with chicharrones. To drink, beer, or red wine, soft drinks (Coca-Cola, Materva, Jupiña, Ironbeer, etc.) or juices for the children.
To finish there were Spanish nougats, from Jijona, yema, Alicante, and marzipan. Also, Cuban flan, or guava pods with cream cheese. And as a final seal, an aromatic Cuban coffee, really, not roasted peas. Collaterally there were hazelnuts and walnuts, figs and dates. And California apples.
Later, at 12:00 at night, Catholics went to church for midnight mass, a Christian tradition since the 5th century, when Pope Sixtus III officiated the first in honor of the birth of Jesus. A choir always sang all the time, even in Latin (the Kyrie Eleison).
Gifts were not given at 12 at night next to a Christmas tree, since there were no Cuba Santa Claus tradition. The gifts were basically for the children and were given on January 6, Three Kings’ Day.
At Christmas they would get together and eat the pork left over from the night before for lunch.
The day of Christmason the 25th, many also used to have a festive family lunch, with the pig left over from the night before, or with rice with chicken, or a Valencian Cuban-style paella, etc.
To say goodbye to the year and wait for the new year, the youngest people generally went with their girlfriends and boyfriends, or specially invited friends, to dances with good orchestras in social clubs, or cabarets. The not-so-young people would get together with family, friends, or neighbors, and play dance music.
All of this was accompanied with wine or beer and salty snacks. At 12 o’clock everyone ate a grape until they reached 12, and made one or more wishes. From their homes, some threw buckets of water into the street to “throw away all the bad things and start the year off right.”
Looking back on all this, I know that a pro-Castro leftist can argue that not all Cubans could celebrate the Christmas holidays like this. But there is a small detail that invalidates such an argument. I don’t think it was possible that at that time 5% of the population (320,000 people) were so extremely poor Cubans that they could not, at least on Christmas Eve, eat a small piece of roast or fried pork, or chicken.
Today it is exactly the opposite. Less than 5% of the population (dictatorial oligarchy and its adjacent keys, high officials, private business owners and peasants or highly dollarized people) is the population segment that can safely dine on roast pork in Christmas Eveespecially the oligarchs and their families.
That 5% of Cuban people will have Christmas Eve today. The other 10.5 million islanders will have Nochemala, and it will be worse than the previous one. What will 2024 be like?
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