Sugar was and still is an important part of people’s lives in Cuba. They still get it as a subsidy at a very cheap price. I thought life without sugar was not possible, at least over there it makes sense to me.
Sugar is vital for your coffee, coffee and milk at breakfast, you add it to the juice you get from any fruit, like orange juice, pineapple juice, guava , and most of all to all the desserts you can make in a month until you get your new sugar allowance.
When the guava season was at its peak, there was not enough sugar for us. A house in every street would send out that unmistakable guava aroma, oh so sweet, warm, and of course it lingers in your mind in the form of marmalade or guava paste. When the Soviet Union’s substantial subsidies ( $6 Billion per year) disappeared, so too did guava cooking,not sure what was the relation between the Russia subsidies and the beautiful guava availability.
We did not see guava paste for a substantial period. Then it started to be sold as a mix of guava and tomato, and this trick worked because we actually forgot the real flavour, what it was supposed to taste like. Later the real guava was sold in the shops for American dollars. This was too expensive for the majority of Cubans.
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