Havana Salsa

This vibrant memoir by food writer Viviana Carballo shares the Havana of her childhood--warm nights, pounding surf, energetic music...and the memorable meals that both nourished and delighted her throughout the years. With pristine physical beauty, an effervescent culture, and a joyfulmess of its people, Cuba had always had the power to attract many. Currently, however, this love for life has been replaced by extraordinary hardship, with little available food, power outages, and daily water stoppages. This is not the Cuba Viviana Carballo knew from her childhood in the 1940s and 1950s--the pre-Castro era. Fearing she would forget how truly mythical her native country was, she decided to to write her Cuban chronicles. Havana Salsa is a collection of stories about her large, extended family, a rather eccentric group who conducted their lives against the extraordinary backdrop of Havana. The book is set up as a series of vignettes showcasing the food and recipes Carballo associates with each family memory, beginning with her childhood in the forties (Calabaza fritters and oxtail stew), through the sensual fifties (roast leg of lamb and doncellita), and then the first eighteen months of the Revolution (rice with chorizo and papas rellenas). Havana Salsa tells the story of Carballo's Havana as only she can do--through the intimate and satisfying experience of food and family.