Traditional Cuban pizza with cheese, a symbol of Cuba's culinary history and culture.


Introduction

Today, pizza enjoys enormous popularity among Cubans in every corner of the Island. We consider it as much our own as congrí, tostones, or roast pork.

How is it possible that a dish of indisputably Italian origin ended up becoming not only one of our most popular foods, but also a true symbol of survival for many Cuban families?

Although pizza became enormously popular in Cuba during the second half of the 20th century, the presence of Italian cuisine on the Island has much older roots. Since the 19th century, there have been references to Italian influence among certain sectors of Cuban society, especially the more affluent classes, and over time its main culinary preparations gradually found an increasingly important place in our eating habits, particularly its signature dish: pizza.

 

 

However, one of the most remarkable chapters in the Cuban history of pizza would come many decades later, during the difficult 1990s.

With the beginning of the Special Period and the severe food shortages that spread throughout the country, that simple combination of flour, cheese, and a little sauce became a viable alternative for many families to put something on the table and satisfy the hunger of adults and children alike.

Those of us who lived through those years in Cuba can hardly separate pizza from that period of our everyday history. Amid so many shortages, it was a fairly affordable and easy-to-find option, which contributed greatly to its presence, in one way or another, in the everyday diet of the Cuban people.

Without a doubt, during that intense crisis, pizza reaffirmed its place within the country's culinary culture, and its consumption continued to expand.

By then, moreover, traditional Italian pizza had long been undergoing a transformation under the influence of Cuban tastes. Cuban pizza was different: the dough was much thicker, soft, and fluffy; the sauce was slightly sweeter; and, whenever possible, a generous layer of good-quality yellow cheese crowned the preparation. All of this was accompanied by that characteristic thin, toasted edge that distinguished it and that so many Cubans remember.


Traditional Cuban pizza with thick dough, tomato sauce, and cheese.


Even the popular way of serving and eating it developed very distinctive characteristics in Cuba.

Anywhere in Havana, or in many other cities and towns across the Island, it was common to find cafeterias and small street stands where you were handed a piping-hot pizza straight from the oven on a thin sheet of paper, folded in half, with cheese and grease dripping down the sides.

With no need for a plate, fork, or knife, this became one of the most popular ways for ordinary Cubans to enjoy that undeniable delight, one bite at a time.

And, very importantly, for some time its price remained quite affordable for everyone.

Much later, with the emergence and expansion of the famous paladares and other private businesses, both its presentation and the ways of eating it became more sophisticated. At the same time, prices began to move considerably away from those remembered by several generations of Cubans, eventually reaching figures today that many families find truly alarming.

The Best-Known Story About the Origin of Pizza

Long before pizza existed as we know it today, different peoples of the ancient world were already eating flatbreads topped with various ingredients. However, the history of modern pizza is closely linked to southern Italy and, particularly, to the city of Naples.

It was there that, between the 18th and 19th centuries, those simple popular flatbreads began to acquire the characteristics that would eventually identify Neapolitan pizza.

Its origins were humble. It consisted essentially of dough made with flour, water, yeast, and salt, to which different ingredients were gradually added.

One of them would forever change its history: the tomato.

Native to the Americas and brought to Europe after the arrival of Europeans in the New World, for a long time the tomato did not occupy the privileged place it would later achieve in Italian cuisine. With its gradual incorporation into those Neapolitan flatbreads, the pizza we recognize today began to take shape.

Other ingredients would follow, including one of its inseparable companions: cheese.

Thus, that simple food initially associated with the working classes of Naples evolved until it became one of the most universal dishes in gastronomy.

It is said that pizza, as we know it today, was first prepared by the Italian Raffaele Esposito in 1889, in the city of Naples itself. Although other pizzerias had already existed for some time, this master pizza maker created it exactly as it is known today.

Raffaele Esposito, who worked at Pizzeria di Pietro e Basta Cossi (now Pizzeria Brandi), prepared it to honor the visit of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita of Savoy.


Raffaele Esposito, Neapolitan pizza maker associated with the history of Pizza Margherita.


The pizza served to the royal couple featured the colors of the Italian flag: the red of the tomato, the green of the basil, and the white of the mozzarella. Hence the name Pizza Margherita, in honor of the queen. It went on to become much more than a dish of Naples' poor, gaining fame throughout Italy and later around the world.


Traditional Pizza Margherita with tomato, mozzarella, and basil.


Regarding the first establishment recognized as a pizzeria in the world, Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba, located at number 18 Via Port’Alba in Naples, is often mentioned. Around 1830, it became established as a pizzeria and, remarkably, the establishment continues to be part of Naples' culinary tradition.


Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba in Naples, considered one of the oldest pizzerias in the world.


In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the great waves of Italian migration carried their culinary traditions to different parts of the world. The United States was one of the main destinations.

New York, and particularly the neighborhoods where large numbers of Italian immigrants settled, became one of the key settings for the expansion of pizza in America. Establishments that made history emerged there, among them Lombardi’s, founded by Gennaro Lombardi, whose history as a pizzeria dates back to 1905.

However, pizza still had a long way to go before becoming the worldwide phenomenon we know today.

After World War II, its popularity grew significantly in the United States. Many American soldiers who had served in Europe had become familiar with and eaten Italian food and, upon returning home, helped fuel an interest that was already growing within the country.

From then on, its expansion was unstoppable.

Over the decades, establishments devoted to selling all kinds of pizza multiplied, and new options appeared: frozen pizza, takeout pizza, and home delivery.

That simple food born from a long popular tradition had begun to conquer the world.

A Brief History of Pizza in Cuba

The ties between Cuba and Italian culture are much older than the popularization of pizza in our country.

From the early centuries of the colonial period, people from different Italian territories were connected, in one way or another, with Cuba. But it was especially during the 19th century that clearer references appeared to a small Italian presence on the Island, including architects, engineers, artists, merchants, and other professionals.

Along with them, and through later cultural and migratory ties, culinary customs and traditions also began to arrive.

By the mid-19th century, there are references to the presence of Italian cuisine among certain affluent sectors of Cuban society. Later, during the first half of the 20th century, its influence spread and became increasingly visible, especially in Havana.

During the 1940s and 1950s, some restaurants specializing in Italian cuisine began to gain recognition. They were still relatively few compared with the expansion this type of establishment would experience later.

During the 1960s, pizza and spaghetti acquired a much greater presence in the everyday Cuban diet.

With the profound economic and social changes experienced by the country and the introduction of food rationing, certain inexpensive and relatively simple foods acquired extraordinary importance in everyday life.

Those of us who lived through those years remember perfectly the role that pizzerias came to play.

They were places regularly frequented by people of all ages. On many occasions, you had to endure endless lines outside their doors before finally being able to sit down in front of a hot meal.


Cubans waiting in line outside a pizzeria, a common scene of everyday life in Cuba.


And, for many, it was worth the wait.

Once inside the establishment, you could “solve” the problem of a meal with a well-prepared plate of spaghetti, accompanied by its proper portions of cheese and tomato sauce, along with a steaming pizza fresh from the oven.

The prices at those establishments are also part of the memories of several generations. Both a pizza and a plate of spaghetti cost one peso and twenty cents each in Cuban national currency and, on some occasions, they could even be accompanied by an ice-cold beer for around eighty cents.

Today, those prices seem to belong to another galaxy, but they were real!

An important event in this history took place in 1968 with the inauguration, in San José de las Lajas, of the Vita Nuova pasta factory, equipped with Italian technology.

The appearance and subsequent spread of its products left a profound mark on the eating habits of several generations.

For many Cubans of those years, the name Vita Nuova became inseparable from spaghetti and home cooking in general. Its famous tomato sauce achieved extraordinary popularity and, for those of us who grew up eating it, it seemed that no other sauce could accompany a good plate of spaghetti in quite the same way.


Can of Vita Nuova tomato sauce, very popular in Cuban cooking for several decades.


It became, so to speak, a kind of Holy Grail of the Cuban table in those days.

Over the years, however, that reality began to change.

State-run pizzerias gradually lost some of the quality that had made them so popular and, on many occasions, also began to suffer from an inconsistent supply of food.

Later, private businesses began occupying much of the space that had previously belonged to those pizzerias. The establishments changed, the offerings changed, the presentations changed and, of course, so did the prices.

But there was one thing that survived all those transformations.

The deeply rooted Cuban love for their pizza never disappeared.

As happened with so many other dishes that once arrived from distant lands, Cuba took that foreign creation, adapted it to its possibilities and preferences, transformed its dough, modified its sauce, added its own particular way of preparing and eating it, and ultimately gave it an identity of its own.

Thus, through a long process of culinary appropriation and transformation, what we now recognize without hesitation as Cuban pizza was born.

A pizza that may have been born far from our shores, but that after so many decades of history, lines, cafeterias, street stands, ovens, improvisations, shortages, and memories, ultimately found a permanent place at our table as well.

And, above all, in our memory.




If you enjoyed discovering this fascinating history, don't forget to leave us your comments and join us for the second part of Pizzas, Pizzerias, and More, this new series from Secrets of Cuban Cuisine that will continue uncovering fascinating glimpses of our culinary tradition.