The Three Havanas of Durham, North Carolina

My mother is a sweet, humble woman until you get her to speak of Cuban food. To her, a Cuban immigrant, cooking is as much a part of the soul as any religious experience; a more logical way of approaching Transubstantiation, perhaps, though we are not at all religious. Had the Catholic Church been founded by Cubans, the wafer would be replaced by pastelitos guayaba, the wine with a cafecito. She calls the sofrito the Holy Trinity of Cuban cooking: the bell pepper, the onion, and the garlic. Combine these with olive oil, let them simmer, let the onion skin uncurl and loosen, let the pepper seep and soften, let the crushed garlic’s juices spread and join them all.

It is difficult to mention Cuba without discussing politics, whether directly or indirectly or handling questions as though the mention of being Cuban makes you a representative of the entire culture. (Yes, my family is Cuban; no, I am not a Republican; yes, I have opinions about the embargo.) So really, food is much easier to deal with. It’s an act of giving and love, as it is throughout many cultures.

But for my mother, cooking Cuban food is an act of remembering we are alive, this carrying of a culture that we are far away from; first the country, then the exile community in Miami where she grew up. For my mother and me, cooking is an act of giving yourself and sharing the culture you love to others.

I often wonder if this is why my mother is so picky about Cuban food being “right.” It’s not just the authenticity of the food. It’s the very real message in this food and its preparation: I’m alive; I remember.

One day, a Cuban restaurant opens in downtown Durham. The walls are the same sunset-yellow as my mother’s kitchen, the windows big and welcoming. A stereo plays the music of Mozart and Schubert but with Cuban musicians who add elements of salsa to the originals. And the food. The food is delicious, a pleasure. I purchase pastelitos guayaba and a café con leche (later, I purchase several pastelitos guayabas for my co-workers to show them what pastelitos are and to have them taste what I enjoy so much). I have never eaten one outside of Miami, or one that my relatives carried in a box on a flight from Miami. In that moment I taste the crispy, light and buttery dough, the thick guava paste. I remember my family, the gatherings that occurred late into the night, the card games of Continental at the dinner table, of the multiple conversations occurring at once and my attempts to follow them all like crossed fishing lines from sticks to water. The food is memory. I can still feel the sticky crust under my fingernails, the warm guava paste on the roof of my mouth.

Cuban cuisine is, perhaps, the strongest link I have to my culture. I speak very little Spanish (I’ve only recently been able to communicate effectively in English without sputtering over myself, mumbling, or leaving uncomfortable silences; wandering and unfinished sentences), though I understand Spanish better than I speak it. What I cook is the link to that culture, a sense of giving something to friends that overrides my vocal clumsiness, my social awkwardness and tendency to drift off or think of something and laugh in the midst of a conversation I was supposed to be listening to, or my panic attacks in which I cancel all plans and feel guilty for being so susceptible. It has only been in my late twenties and early thirties that I’ve had intense conversations with people, become close friends with people, and accepted who I am.

I’ve prepared food for my friends: the flan with raspberries and brewing cafecitos at the MFA program I attended, introducing friends to the rituals and preparations of coffee, the way you always offer it to a visitor—the way I have seen my mother and relatives offer coffee to visitors—the thick, melted sugar snug on the rim of the ceramic cup as we toast. The ropa vieja I shared with my patient and understanding roommate; my words messy and uncoordinated while the smell of garlic and simmering tomato sauce lingered in the kitchen. The congri for those I miss so dearly now: the poets, the journalists, the novelists.

I live with my mother in Durham because I can’t afford to live elsewhere. I live with her because she knows and understands my history of self-destruction. She knows that I carry every mistake, slight or significant or imagined, with me and judge myself without any inkling of forgiveness. Forgiveness and love are for others. My brain tells me this often, that I am here for others and not myself because there is no practical reason for me to exist at all. She has stayed awake with me for more nights than I can remember, even well into adulthood, in order to guide me off ledges I’ve created in my head.

About the raspberries.

I added them to the flan recipe handed down from my grandmother who hated cooking. The tartness of the raspberries is a wonderful contrast to the sweetness of the melted sugar. My mother, however, was reluctant to try this variation—to her, I’m still the daughter who mistakenly read 1 1/2 cups of water for a Betty Crocker chocolate cake as 11/2.

She has been hesitant to accept my other amenities to her Cuban food, especially the ropa vieja, the Cuban national dish that translates as “old clothes” due to its shredded appearance. I don’t shred the steak. For me, the cost is such that I would prefer to eat it in chopped sections than wafer-thin shreds. The pepper and onions are a thicker cut than necessary. I sometimes eat the meal as a soup rather than with rice, thereby adding more red wine, more tomato paste and sauce than is necessary. The meal is supposed to go with rice.

Also, there is the example of how I use the sofrito, the trinity of the onion, pepper, and garlic. Combine this with olive oil, and you can make anything. After my stint of working in a deli in the Midwest, I added Polish sausages and kielbasa to the meal, or used turkey sausage and added a bit of apple cider to de-glaze the onions and create a rich sauce.

My mom doesn’t tell me outright her opinion of these changes, but I get a hint whenever I offer to make dinner: she suggests she prepare it, despite any protests on my part.

I decide to take my mother to the new Cuban restaurant. She eats croquettes and a drinks a cafecito; we devour the Cuban bread. My mother eats the food and I ask what she thinks. She wonders if something is withheld, that the spices are not as profound as they should be.

My mother asks the owner’s wife about the food, and I remember how the wife asks when my mother arrived to this country. 1964, my mother says, knowing and assertive; it’s a year she speaks of in piecemeal memory: rifle pointed at her head, one suitcase for a family of six. The owner’s wife nods, says My husband left in the ’90s. The spices you know of—like saffron—were just not available. or too expensive for a food ration card. To him, an onion was a spice. This is the type of food he grew up with, the food he knows.

And I think: This is authentic Cuban food.

When I drive us home from the Cuban restaurant, my mother is silent. No doubt the reality has hit my mother that the culture she once knew is gone, several generations gone, in fact. Not just the locations of schools or shops, but all the way down to the preparation of food. All she has of Cuba are photographs and a teacup.

I don’t know what the changes to the new relations between Cuba and the U.S. will do. I do know that each time someone says they’re excited to finally get Cuban cigars and rum, to visit the country before the United States ruins it and all the old buildings become Starbucks, I cringe. I simply hope these changes will allow Cubans to eat without ration cards, to dissent, to create art without fear of imprisonment.

I think of the shop owner and wonder if in twenty years he will feel the same way as my mother, that the Cuba he knew will be gone, too. The Cuba that my mother remembers. The Cuba where one day I will see where my parents and grandparents lived, where my relatives are buried, all of whom lived in very different Cubas from the previous generation.

I wonder: if we define our Cubanness through cuisine, how do we reconcile these legitimate and different viewpoints within this diaspora and reunification? Perhaps it is in the act itself that can remain despite the strong divide: the knowledge of being alive, of affirming it, of sharing, of loving.

And that is authentic.