Our Daily Bread in Cuba

By Nike E.G.

HAVANA TIMES — I’m a Cuban housewife and I’m sick and tired of buying bread rolls at my neighborhood bakery and the other one we’ve got in town, it’s an ordeal for me. I go in the morning and they don’t have bread. There’s no bread at noon and, at 3 in the afternoon, they tell me that they’ll have some at 5:30. Then they sell so little that, when I get there, all of it has been sold, making a mockery of my age.

I don’t know what else to give my children when they’re hungry, because there’s nothing other than our daily bread. Then there’s the quality of that bread. It’s been long since I last ate a bread roll made with love, and oil…but that’s another story.

The other thing I need to worry about as a mother and housewife is what to put on the bread. When I’ve got eggs and cooking oil, I make some mayonnaise. When I don’t have one ingredient, I honestly don’t know what to do. Cheese, my favorite, is out of the question: the cheapest kind, when available, costs 30 pesos the pound. This is why the cheapest and healthiest food, for me, is avocado.

I would like to share with you an avocado recipe, to see if, together, we can overcome the problems I’ve just told you about.

Avocado Recipe

1 avocado
1 large onion or 2 small onions
4 (or more) cloves of garlic. The more you add, the spicier it will be.
1 teaspoon of salt
Juice from 1 lemon

Slice the onion and garlic and put it in a blender with the lemon juice, the salt and avocado (in chunks). Blend.

Put in the fridge and, when you’ve got the bread, spread it. Let me know if you liked it soon.