what people usually ate at that hour when they went to a café after the movies or the theater.
Other popular sandwiches are pan con lechón (bread and pork sandwich made with mojo), sándwich Cubano (sandwich made with ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard), and a croqueta preparada (basically, a Cuban sandwich garnished with ham croquettes).
And then, of course, there is the frita, which is a Cuban sandwich very similar to a hamburger or cheeseburger. Unlike a hamburger, the meat is made with ground beef and ground pork or chorizo, and cooked with pimentón, a sort of paprika, which gives it a distinctive flavor.
Always served with chopped onions, mustard and very fine julienne potatoes. These are the sorts of sandwiches to eat when you are not on a diet. There is a restaurant in Little Havana called El Rey de las Fritas (The King of the Fritas). Pretty tasty!
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and desserts are an important part of Cuban meals.
Guanábana is a green, spiny Cuban fruit, inedible when raw but delicious when made into ice cream, or into a punch with sugar and milk or water which is called champola. To be in “la guanábana” means to be affluent, well off, and enjoying the best things in life.
Everyone’s favorite, though, is probably mamey, a fruit with a rough brown exterior, a sweet red flesh, and a single shiny black pit. Excellent as ice cream. If you have a really good meal, you can tell the chef that “Eso te quedó mamey,” which means “This thing you cooked is awesome!”
Chatinos are thick green plantain slices, fried once, smashed into flat disks and deep fried again in oil. An essential part of Cuban meals. Also called tostones. Mariquitas are fried chips made from the same plantains.
Quimbombó is an Afro-Cuban word for okra, which comes from Africa and became a staple in Cuban cooking, as it did wherever African slaves existed. Originally spelled quingombó, it is one of the main ingredients in, and probably gives its name to, gumbo, a stew that has been a part of life in Louisiana for hundreds of years. Fufú is an Afro-Cuban word for ripe plantains, mashed to a pulp and slightly seasoned, formed into balls, and added to quimbombó when cooked as a stew. It can also be made with ñame.
Snacks and Desserts
Everybody loves a little caramelo (candy) now and then. Maybe a chambelona (a lollipop) will do. Gaceñiga, merenguitos, pirulí (a type of lollipop), maní garapiñao, caramelos “rompe quijá” (jawbreakers),