Cabbage, which was the main consumer of school lunches, is moving away from the pockets of Cuba

havana/in the film Madagascar (1995). he is crack, crack, crack controlling the scene where people seem to be trapped in a hunger that forces them to eat vegetables every day without any other supplements. Reiterating that filming would cost much more in these times of inflation and scarcity.

Cabbage is one of those products which, along with bananas, is closely linked in the imagination of this Island to times of greatest hardship. Resistant to movement, easy to store and able to fill several plates with one copy, it has as many fans as there are detractors. Most of those who keep her away from their table are marked by childhood or adolescent trauma where Dona Col was present.

“I was on a scholarship for three years of my high school in Güira de Melena and they gave us cabbage for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” says Lázaro, who at 51 years old manages a small sales point of food, fruits and vegetables. near Carlos III street in Central Havana. “I don’t eat it anymore, I can’t even smell it, but thanks to it I feed my family,” he gives caution while pointing to several examples of the vegetable still wrapped in the outer leaves of a more intense green color.

“I had a scholarship for three years of my high school in Güira de Melena and they gave us cabbage for breakfast, lunch and dinner”

“I sell them by units and there are days when I have better quality and others when they arrive a little damaged because, although it is a durable product, it is better to have boxes to move it because a lot is lost with it then. hitting and cutting,” he is sure. Most of what he sells comes from the city of San Antonio de los Baños, in Artemisa, where he has contact “with a farmer who harvests a little bit of everything. ”

When the customer leaves the Lázaro stand with cabbage in the bag, another life of vegetables begins, changing depending on who prepares it and the ingredients added. It could be a few coarse, dry pieces on a prisoner’s tray or a few fine strands with salt and drizzled with olive oil on a plate at a high-end restaurant. Knowledge of the knife and the spices at hand will sink it or enhance it.

“The trick with cabbage is to take out the leaves that are going to be used one by one,” explained Julia, 81, who for years worked in a canteen for the Cuban Fishing Fleet that useless. “The day it was my turn to work, no one left the cabbage on the tray, they all ate it because I knew how to make it, not like my other colleagues which took one slice after another and then fat, hard pieces it turned out that no one liked.”

Julia explains her procedure as the surgeon who tells the students about the cut on a delicate area that is surrounded by bones, veins and tendons. “Once the leaves are removed one by one, they are washed well and then you have to remove the central vein, which is harder to chew and has a slightly bitter taste spicy ” On the table is the very sharp knife with which thin rings are cut after each sheet is rolled and turned into a long tube. When they open and reveal their multiple layers, they look like thin noodles. “To add it, I prepare a mixture of oil, salt and vinegar separately, although it is better if I have lemon.”

Served shortly after dressing, “that cabbage recipe is irresistible,” warns Julia. He also likes to saute it, preserve it, and stir it into soups, but it’s his specialty “cole salad for those who say they don’t like cabbage.” With his mastery, the only possible trust is that the main raw material is no longer that cheap product that filled the market platforms and made Cubans chew without enthusiasm a few decades ago.

“From a medium cabbage and with my method of removing a leaf and using a very sharp knife to cut thin strips, my husband and I can have a salad for a whole week”

Inflation has also affected this vegetable, which has increased in price in recent years. If a year ago in the Plaza La Calzada market in the city of Cienfuegos, a copy cost 80 pesos, by the end of this October it had already reached 100. the 500 pesos needed to buy a copy at the market on 19 and B, in El Vedado Havana.

“From a medium cabbage and with my technique of removing a leaf and using a very sharp knife to cut thin strips, my husband and I can have salad for a whole week,” explained Julia, but he immediately warns: “Yes, retirement would give me an opportunity, but what I earn every month is not even enough for three cabbages and with what my husband earns almost that we can do enough to prepare the dressing.

Scattered around the world, some of those fishermen who sat in the 80s and 90s in front of a tray in a state dining room where Julia worked must remember those thin strands she cut with care and that they chewed with pleasure, savoring every bite.