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Havana Salsa: Stories and Recipes
by Viviana Carballo
Available from Amazon
$11.20
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Features
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Atria; Reprint edition (August 7, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743285174
ISBN-13: 978-0743285179
Product Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces ()
From Publishers Weekly
Food columnist Carballo's devotion to both her Cuban homeland and the magnificent food of her childhood are evident in this memoir with recipes. She grew up in prerevolutionary Cuba in the 1950s with divorced parents—her father, a philandering fortune-teller, instilled in his daughter a passion for food. "My dad loved every kind of food and always encouraged me to sample right along with him," Carballo writes. "He took pleasure in every bite. It was a joyful experience, and since then I have always associated food with being cosseted, with being happy." This anecdote is followed by a recipe for Roast Duck El Pacifico. Each vignette is a mere tidbit, a taste of Carballo's life, covering her family's eccentric friends, her years in an American convent boarding school, her early romances, right up to her escape to the U.S. after Castro came to power. The stories are not as consistently fulfilling as the recipes; the ones she doesn't tell are quite interesting: "Little did I know that my mother was on a mission to the Sierra Maestra carrying medicines and small arms" is virtually all she writes about her mother's astonishing work. The memoir is a treat, although more substantial fare would have been nice. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
"What to serve for dinner the night a new dictator comes to town? If you are like Viviana Carballo and lived in Cuba during the heady first days of 1959, you make pollito en cazuela (stewed whole chicken), accompanied by arroz con coco (coconut rice), and wash it all down with a Kir Royale, of course!...[A] witty, delicious book." -- Mirta Ojito, author of Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus
"Readers looking for standards like tostones and cubanos will be satisfied and then enchanted by unique recipes that could only come from Carballo's experiences."-- New York Post
"Havana Salsa is food-as-memoir set at a diverse and often eccentric table....[Carballo's] Cuba will never be filled with decaying buildings, rationed supplies and difficult goodbyes. All she has to do is go into the kitchen, and the vibrant pulse of her homeland is revived in a whiff of ripe mango [and] the sizzle of calabaza fritters on the stove."-- The Orlando Sentinel
"A delicious combination of tales about [Carballo's] quirky family and recipes for dishes that are seared into her memory." -- The Miami Herald
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Havana Salsa: Stories and Recipes (Hardcover)
. The last 10 years have brought a wealth of "growing up Cuban" memoirs, most notably "Waiting for Snow in Havana," "Tropicana Nights," and "Finding Mañana." Funny thing is, we just can't get enough of them. We guess it's because they bring memories of a Cuba we can only dream about -- the glory days of Cuba that are slowly fading in our memories. Viviana Carballo has added to the mix with a delightful account of her own rather eccentric family's experiences both BC (Before Castro) and after. Reading this book is a little like pulling up a stool and listening to the stories of a favorite (albeit a little saucy) great aunt. As in many homes of the time and especially in the better homes of Havana, Carballo's mother cooked only occasionally, mostly for holidays and special occasions. The real culinary magic was performed by Dulce, the Carballo's cook and a devout follower of Santeria -- a religion that combines African mystic belief with Catholic faith. It was here that Viviana Carballo first learned the basics of Cuban cuisine, in a kitchen that was quite literally watched over by the Gods. For those who survived the "revolution," no Cuban life story is without pain and suffering and Carballo's experiences are especially heartrending. Her father is branded a counter-revolutionary and locked up in one of Castro's gulags where he dies after two years of inhumane treatment. When she decides to flee the island, she must leave her husband behind, a horrible Sophie's choice that no woman should ever be faced with. Carballo seasons her narrative with some 70 recipes for Cuban dishes, some very traditional, although there is a strong emphasis on dishes from the mother country, Spain. Some are pure Gallego: you'd be hard pressed to find Blue Cheese Circles, St. James Almond Tart, or Christmas Turkey with Catalan stuffing on a traditional Cuban menu, but this broadening of the Cuban food repertoire only adds to this book's appeal. There is even a recipe for filloas, the Spanish version of French crepes. Thick and almost rustic in appearance, these hearty pancakes make a great wrapper for a wide range of fillings both sweet and savory. Cuban dessert fanatics (and we hear from them weekly at our website) will enjoy several rarely published dessert recipes including one for Brazo Gitano (quite literally Gypsy's arm) a classic jelly roll cake traditionally filled with sweet guava filling and topped with candied fruits and shredded coconut, but here stuffed with a citrus cream and garnished simply with powdered sugar and orange slices. Meringue loving foodies will be inspired by the capitolios, a chocolate cake-like confection topped with fluffy meringue -- although the author does admit to taking the easy way out and using a commercial brownie mix for the cake. We have only begun to sample the recipes, but one clearly stands out: a new twist on enchilado de camarones, a very typical dish of sautéed shrimp in a creole sauce, here made less typical with the addition of coconut milk and a bit of a spicy kick. Havana Salsa is an excellent read and the recipes are an added bonus!
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Havana Salsa: Stories and Recipes
by Viviana Carballo
Available from Amazon
$11.20
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