Markets in Havana
Monday, February 28, 2011 at 6:40PM 
Over the winter break, I had occasion to travel to Havana, Cuba for a friend’s wedding. I stayed in a hotel room with a kitchen, so my companions and I planned to save some money and eat better by making most meals for ourselves. This entailed, we thought, going to the grocery store or the market and exchanging money for foodstuffs. In principle this was true, but we discovered it was certainly a different and, at times, more challenging experience than we anticipated.
There was a grocery store in the hotel, but it was quite bereft of anything fresh and they tried to rip us off on bottled water, so we walked in a balmy sun to a supermarket down the street.
We discovered one must check any large bags through a window in the exterior wall before entering the store. Inside, the shelves were mostly full, but there was in some places a conspicuous lack of variety. One side of an aisle was exclusively one brand of vegetable oil and the other side was half tins of tomato puree and half tins of canned green beans.
Meat and cheese were found at the rear of the store where it was paid for and bagged up with a taped closure. On the way out of the store, suited and friendly staff checked bag contents against receipts, at least in a cursory fashion.
While we had acquired some provisions at the supermarket, there had been no fresh fruit or vegetables to be found, so we inquired about the location of the market and set out on what became a rather fruitless venture.
Cuba has two currencies: the Cuban Peso (called moneda nacional in Spanish ) and the Cuban Convertible Peso, or CUC (pronounced “kook”) for short. The CUC is for tourists to use and is a bit stronger than the Canadian dollar. We were told the fruit and vegetable market required the use of moneda nacional, but it would be no problem as one CUC is equivalent to 24 pesos in MN. It sounded simple enough.
After a quick tour through the packed market, we made a grocery list and sent our best Spanish speaker and an escort back in to the throng for the goods. After a quarter hour, a frustrated pair emerged, cursing and sighing. No vendor had wanted to honour the CUC to MN exchange rate within a reasonable margin.
Note the foreigners on the right really wanting some giant avocados and juicy vine-ripened tomatoes in December.
While a bag of produce should have been a few CUC total, five CUC were asked in exchange for something that was about half a CUC according to the price board hanging on the stall. However it all went down, the end result was a few cucumbers and a couple tomatoes, along with a bunch of near-ripe oranges which were bewilderingly added gratis to the meagre sale.
Because of this experience, we were on guard when we tried to buy bread, but the folks there were happy to offer fair prices. The bread itself, while certainly bread-like, was whiter and lighter than I’d thought possible. Upon commenting on this, our friend, who had lived in Havana for the better part of four years, told us frankly it is because bakery workers skim flour and replace it with other things.
“Everyone here has something on the side of his regular job in order to make a little extra,” she said. This seemed to be the case when our Cuban friends purchased bread outside of bakery hours, bought cheap coffee hidden in newspaper straight from a cafe, and smoked discount gray-market cigars.
After a few days, we became more accustomed to things like this and we would chuckle saying, “E-E-C” for “Esto es Cuba.”
Reader Comments (1)
So like, if the food was crappy, how come you didn't offer your services and go bake some bread for you and your friends? You know what they say, 'desperate times call for desperate measures.'
Just kidding.