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is excellent, being more delicate in flavor
and more tender than in the North.
Sugar, the formost national product,
plays a great part' in Cuban food: sweets
are perhaps too preponderant. But one
should not forget that it is better for
the organism in the tropics to get its
calories from sugar than from meat.
In fact, a great specialist once told me
that the popular "pan con timba"
(a slang expression to denote a roll
containing a slice of guava paste, a
makeshift for a meal for the poor and–
often the consolation of hungry street
urchins, to be obtained for two cents
at any bodega), was an ideal combination,
as it contains cereals, sugar and fruit,
a perfectly balanced food product, better
for the native, probably, than a beefsteak,
and quite as nourishing.
Rice is, in a measure, the staff of
life down here. We eat almost as much
of it as Orientals do, and know how to
prepare it. Rice appears on creole tables,
rich or poor, twice a da'.y and largely
substitutes bread, without excluding it.
To prepare rice, like coffee, is simple
enough yet most difficult to accomplish
to
perfection. White rice-of course–
should be well cooked, and tender, each