The Hour of Charcoal Arrives to Havana
HAVANA TIMES – When my mother told me that the hour of charcoal had arrived, I didn’t feel the shiver of excitement that used to herald celebrations when I was a child or teenager.
In my family, charcoal was always associated with festivities. On Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and birthdays, we gathered around the soft, sweet crackle of its flame. Alongside my cousins—who are now on the other side of the sea—I ran through the garden or shooed away the dogs and younger kids from the grill.
Now, in our home, the hour of charcoal equates to the unease and helplessness shared by our people.
The arrival of charcoal in the capital as a cooking method is a cry that has long resounded in the provinces across the country and now bursts forth amid widespread shortsightedness. Cooking with charcoal in 2025 is not a solution to the absence of gas or lack of electricity, nor is it an act of creativity; it is an overwhelming regression that speaks for itself about the country’s economic collapse.
The advent of charcoal cooking not only entails searching for the product at a price affordable to the already-patched pockets of everyday Cubans but also acquiring a stove. This new expense requires reorganizing the family budget: forgoing essential food purchases to cook a few items, and questioning whether it might be better to buy a wood stove—and, in the absence of trees, chopping up household furniture.
Charcoal and wood stoves are now a reality for the Cuban people. Time travel seems to be our curse. The smell of charcoal no longer signals celebrations; it is a scent that awakens our understanding and places us squarely in the center of the country’s dire economic situation.
