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9
Just as cooking in the United States
has evolved from the original simplicity
of the English puritan's bill of fare
gradually influenced by the diverse foreign
elements that integrate its population,
the cuisine of Cuba, though directly
derived from Spain, it's mother country,
has been modified and refined by the
products of a different soil and the
requirements of a different climate, with
possibly a French touch imported from
Santo Domingo. (1)
Thus the national Olla of Spain is
converted here into the Cuban Ajiaco
~
a thick soup, of course, but composed
of entirely different ingredients. Instead
of beef and ham, we find pork. Instead
of potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbage,
garbanzos (chick peas) etc. we have
sweet potatoes, yams, malangas, bananas,
corn
&.
Much less oil is used in Cuban
cookery than in Spanish and we are
more critical here than they are over
seas about its quality-at
l~ast
about
its rankness.
( 1) After the negro upheaval in the beginning
of the .XJXth Century, thousands of French des-'
cended whites emigrated from Sto. Domingo and
Haiti to our island.
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