Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile's Hunger for Home

by Michael Domitrovich and Eduardo Machado

Book Overview

Born into a well-to-do family in Cuba in 1953, Eduardo Machado saw firsthand the effects of the rising Castro regime. When he and his brother were sent to the United States on one of the Peter Pan... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1592403212
• ISBN13: 9781592403219
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Gotham Books
• Length: 357 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

"Tastes Like Cuba" is a mouth watering book.

I immigrated into the US in the early sixties. Although I consider myself more American than Cuban after fifty years of exile, eating some of the recipes mentioned in the book such as bistek empanizado fill my stomach and soul with the nostalgic flavor of my former piece of Paradise. Signed: Andrew J. Rodriguez Award-winning author: "Adios, Havana," A Memoir.

Emotional and Inspiring True Life Story - And Some Good Recipes Too

The author had me hooked from page one. The writing is excellent, and my only complaint is the fact that the author included Cuban recipes in the main text of the book - it was a little bit distracting, and would have been more useful if the recipes were all in one place, at the end of the book. However, the story that Eduardo Machado tells is wonderful, detailed and rich with memory about his Cuban childhood, and the significance that familiar foods and traditions have in our lives, especially for those who can't go home. For some American immigrants, the home country is part of their lives - they can fly back home easily, knowing that things will be the way they left them; friends will still be there, and so will most of their relatives. For refugees, the situation is different - they know they can never go back home, and the new country is their home country. Machado's longing for food and all that is familiar will ring true to any reader who has experienced a life-altering situation, one in which things will never be the same as they were before. I completely understand the author's fascination and near-obsession with the details of food, spices and aromas. The author's description of the downtown Los Angeles Grand Central Market is so accurate, and I have been told by many people that visiting this open-air market for the first time made them feel like they were back home again. I highly recommend this book.

Tastes Like Cuba

Just finished reading this story..It is fantastic, has all, loved it. I related to it. The food, the story, the pain of Cuba..

A Tasty Treat

Eduardo Machado wrote a wonderful memoir of his early life in Cuba, to his young adult life in Miami and then Los Angeles, and then in his later years in New York and back in California. His food recollections of his early days of Newspaper Soup, Bistec Empanizado, Arroz con Pollo, etc., he describes in such delicious detail. His journey from Cuba to Hialeah and then to Miami pulled at my heart-strings. When him and his family got to Los Angeles, he wrote about many incidents. One in particular affected me very much. Him and his family went shopping at the Central Market in the valley. They were trying to find the foods they had grown up with in Cuba. I could go on with this review, but in short, this book was one of the best memoirs in the food/immigration subjects. Eduardo, thank you very much for a wonderful, tasty, and can't put it down read. Bravo!

From Cuba to the US and back again

Eduardo Machado came to the US in 1961 as part of Operation Peter Pan, a program that transported about 14,000 children from Cuba to the United States after Batista fell. His grandfather tells the young Machado that his arroz con pollo "will taste just like Cuba." Machado thinks: "How do you make a meal taste like a place? I should have asked him directly. Instead, I spent the rest of my life looking for the answer." I really enjoyed the story of how Machado finally reconciled his sense of loss for his homeland with the new life he created for himself in the United States. And, as a foodie myself, I enjoyed how he told his story with the help of food. Example: Machado loved his grandmother's cafe con leche. "I was only 5 years old, but I knew one thing for sure. All I had to do was dunk the bread into the cup. Chew, sip and heaven in the morning was possible." Fidel Castro destroyed the family: "The savior had become the tyrant. Fidel was now the source of all suffering for my family, more than Batista ever was." He says he felt contempt for his family, then guilt. Velveeta sandwiches he was forced to eat didn't help matters. In the end Machado goes back to Cuba as a middle aged man, and makes peace with Cuba, his family and perhaps with himself. He eats a tamale and wonders if it was as good as the ones he remembered as a kid. "And then it hit me. I didn't care. I didn't want to compare them. ... I no longer wanted to be the kind of Cuban that let what was lost get in the way of the beauty and the joy and life and food that was staring me in the face." An interesting and insightful memoir, with some useful recipes for Cuban food. Robert C. Ross 2008