Because of the people who have lived or gone to Cuba at one time or another, Cuban food has a heavy influence of Spanish, African, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Chinese cultures! But, because Cuban’s do not have a lot of money, they have to make their food both interesting and inexpensive. To do this, a lot of the food in Cuba is cooked slowly, using a very low flame on the cooker. They also need to add lots of herbs to give the food some taste.
BREAKFAST
A traditional breakfast meal is tostada and café con leche. Tostada is a type of toasted Cuban bread with butter. Café con leche is coffee. Although Americans most probably drink coffee at an early age, Cubans are a little less rigid with this rule as coffee beans are easy and inexpensive for them to grow. So: Tostada and coffee, like hot chocolate and toast!
LUNCH
For lunch Cubans like to eat chicken empanadas. These are a little like sandwiches in America, but they use a special kind of bread that looks a little like pita-bread. If they don’t eat empandas then Cuban will normally eat another kind of sandwich for lunch, like the media noche – midnight snack.
AFTERNOON SNACK / TEA TIME
Cubans love to have afternoon snacks/tea time. Usually these will consist of savories like pastellios or bocaditos.
DINNER
Dinner in a Cuban house is usually the main meal of the day. It is usually a cook meal and most likely will have beans in it (Cubans like to cook with beans). Because Cuba is an island, traditional dinner meals will also usually have some kind of seafood. The main meal is also always followed by desserts like caramel custard and bread and butter pudding!
