Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal

by Hanna Garth

“Garth’s in-depth and intimate ethnography portrays the shortcomings in Cuba’s welfare system, and the profound consequences for the way people eat.” —Megan A. Carney, author of The Unending HungerFood in Cuba follows Cuban families as they struggle to maintain a decent quality of life in Cuba’s faltering, post-Soviet welfare state by looking at the social and emotional dimensions of food access. Based on extensive fieldwork with families in Santiago de Cuba, Hanna Garth examines Cuban families’ attempts to acquire and assemble “a decent meal,” unraveling the household dynamics, community interactions, and individual reflections on everyday life in today’s Cuba. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Cuba lost its most significant trade partner. Although trade agreements have improved the quantity and quality of rationed food in Cuba, many Cubans still report living with food shortages and economic hardship. Garth tells the stories of families that face the daily challenge of acquiring not only enough food, but food that meets personal and cultural standards. She argues that these ongoing struggles produce what the Cuban families describe as “a change in character,” and that for some, this shifting concept of self leads to a transformation of Cuban identity.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Social Justice

234 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 7, 2020

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging anthropological study into the way food is acquired and centered in modern Cuban life. Framing the study around the concept of acquiring a “decent meal,” Garth argues that more aspects of food acquisition than the concept nutritional value should be taken into consideration when evaluating food systems.

[Tiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really fascinating read. Based on ethnographic fieldwork (read: deep hanging out!) in post-Soviet socialist Cuba, the book asks: What does food (in)security look like in a place where there is no hunger and where there is a robust state infrastructure to deliver a basic quota of food to all citizens? In engaging prose, Hanna Garth shows how food security means much more than having enough in terms of calories, but rather refers to a more complex sense of satisfaction with one's ability to feed oneself in a culturally, historically appropriate and dignified way. She shows how in the contemporary Cuban context, marked by dwindling state resources, scarcity and various kinds of inequalities, the struggle to find a "decent meal" is a daily affair for many Cubans. Through observational vignettes, interviews and thoughtful analyses, she shows us how different Cuban families engage in different strategies to acquire food, how they relate to their own identities and histories through the foods that they can (and cannot) acquire, how inequalities are exacerbated and reproduced in the quest for food, and how the challenges of finding a "decent meal" result in profound ethical concerns and negotiations. Truly recommended for all those interested in (post)socialism, food studies, anthropology and, of course, Cuba.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daily rituals (like practices around food acquisition, preparation, and consumption/obtaining and presenting a “decent meal”) constitute critical aspects of “living a good life” for many Cubans. Having a “decent meal” is a marker of “an overall good/decent life.” The inability to procure a decent meal is seen as a political failing of the state’s food rationing program. This political failure to adequately provide satiating foods to Cubans is often a source of significant stress and anxiety. Inaccessibility of foods, and the daily labor necessary for trying to obtain them, can lead to panic and a sense of crisis for many Cubans, some of whom experience their inability to access decent foods as a symbolic loss of (racialized, classed, gendered) identity. Perceptions of what a “decent meal” is, and of how capable the state is of providing “decent” food for Cubans is also highly determined through juxtaposition with other historical periods, in which food was either abundant (post-independence, and post-1959-1980s) or severely scare (Special Period after the collapse of the Soviet Union).

[Hasheemah Afaneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hanna Garth takes us on a journey that explores food adequacy in a country like Cuba. In the introduction, Garth writes that the "United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) honored Cuba for maintaining extremely low levels of hunger and malnutrition, citing particular praise for Cuba's national food ration, which still provides about half of an individual's monthly nutritional requirements at very low cost...But it is [sic] this context that [sic] illumnate[s] the ways in which food scarcity is experienced outside of conditions of famine and starvation, but still within a food system that is rapidly changing."

That is indeed what the author sets out to do as she introduces us to 22 Cuban families of different races, gender identities and socioeconomic statuses, unified by their "struggle for life" and the food ration that serves as a baseline for equality for Cuban families.

[S]

It’s interesting and disappointing how infrequently the embargo is discussed. The humanitarian exception to the sanctions is never discussed. 84% of all Cuban-consumed food is imported. How does Cuba import its food? From where? Does the embargo raise the cost of food importation?

Garth discusses how the Cubanidad identity is complete with some aspects of the New Man philosophy as developed by Che Guevara and an anti-imperialism, but that anti-imperialism is never really discussed as it relates to food.

[Ella Szczepanski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chose this as my ethnography for my anthropology food and culture class this semester. Wrote a whole paper on it but I found it really interesting and a lot more engaging than other academic texts I have read. I loved how the author wove in the personal stories of the cities residents with her analysis of Cuba’s food system and how she explained how it has been shaped by the island’s history and social/political systems by centering the book around the concept of a “decent meal”.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the book repetitive at times, Garth chose to emphasize the connection between food and community in multiple sections of the book, but I felt that she could've expanded on other topics like government instead.