Talk:Culture of Cuba

---

Untitled

The NPOV message was removed previously, however an edit conflict caused it to stay, and I have now removed it again. DO'Neil 06:12, May 27, 2004 (UTC)

---

VANDALISM DETECTED

I believe that this is a clear example of vandalism.. yet i think that originally it wasn't.. so can someone revert it ??

"There is also a candy community in Cuba, primarily made of up descendants of Sephardic sweet chocolate fleeing the Spanish Inquisitonenjoy. In the early 20th century, they were joined by bakerys around the world from Eastern Europe. Though the candy community is small, the taste is amazing." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yagami Kurono (talk • contribs) 07:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

MAJOR CHANGES

• added the spanish acronym for "Schools of Higher Athletic Performance" which is ESPA
• added two more TV stations recently created with a brief explanation about the reasons for their creation (for content information purposes)
• added a paragraph about the movies, theatres, ballet and music. very brief tough

i will also like to add info on art schools in Cuba and other large hobbies like Chess and activities closely conected with their weather, being a tropical country they have a lot of beach activity and the summer its quite a largely active and exciting entertainment time for the cubans. i will try to make a good addition soon... --Gotten 05:42, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Added Alejo Carpentier -- one of Cuba's foremost writers. Mig 01:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Havana Carnivals

"The Havana Carnivals of 1960 were the hottest in all the revolutionary period under Fidel Castro. People were not only celebrating freedom but it was the first anniversary of a government that seemed to promise a better future." If anyone thinks this info is worth merging, please do. Babajobu 15:34, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Link To Son

Hi, I am unsure if it is correct but the link to son under the heading "music of cuba" links to the word "son" which I think is incorrect, but I'm not a music expert so I don't know for sure. Can anyone fix the link? Skuzabut 17:41, 22 April 2006 (EST)

Street Impressions?

what does street impressions have to do with culture? specially those old cars.. does the 1900s cars appears in the Culture of United States, or England, France etc.? every single page you read of Cuba politics is always involved

Sport

When talking about football, I do not believe it is neccessary to put another word in parentheses. The world understands which type of football you are talking about so any other word in parentheses is redundant. Please change it to just plain football. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.163.54.134 (talk) 05:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Cuisine

I'm meditating to correct this section. Saying that cuban cuisine lacks seasonings or sauces is downright wrong. Cuban cuisine is mainly not peppery (however, if you intend to eat things like rabo encendido better have a fire extinguisher handy!) nevertheless a wide variety of seasonings are used: garlic, cummings, onion, parsley, etc. Sauces are equally popular in most meat dishes.

Cuban cuisine also has some noticeable chinese influences, soy sauce is commonly used in several recipes and some dishes are downright chinese in origin, such as arroz salteado. Cuban cuisine has also large regional variety, moros y cristianos is oriental in origin, while Havana has culinary specialties such as croquetas, the arroz and picadillo a la habanera and Guanabacoa's papas rellenas. No mention whatsoever to the fact that, being a sugar producing country, Cuba has as well a long time tradition in desserts.

Fact is that criollo dishes usually came from the poorer, less "sophisticated" areas of countryside Cuba, and reflected a simpler way of eating, as in all deserts based on fruits and sugar (coco rallado being a quick example), whereas Havana and the largest cities had a more refined and "continental" way of cooking, although it still made use of the local ingredients.

This is mainly cultural talk, of course the everyday cuisine for a cuban family is drastically different to this picture (and relies mainly on rice and beans, eggs and occasionally chicken, grinded meat or fish, steaks being a yearly rarity at best). However, saying caviar is from Russia does not imply all russians eat caviar or even know how it looks like...

"Lack of fuel for agricultural machinery meant crops could not be harvested" is as well not exactly correct. Lack of fuel ment crops started to be harvested by hand, or with the aid of animal force, with a sensible loss in productivity. Also, aside from the libreta and the black market, there's the mercado paralelo, where mainly agricultural products can be acquired. Prices are several times those of the libreta. Officially sanctioned by Castro's government in the mid 80s, this parallel market has never been rationed, so saying "all cuban food is rationed" is imprecise. Having high prices, the parallel market does determine a difference between those capable of buying its products and those that can't.

All comments are welcome before I put these changes on. -- EmirCalabuch 13:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with everything you say. This page is in a poor state, please add your proposed changes, and add any links and references you can. Anything is an improvement! --Zleitzen 13:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought of forming a separate article with the libreta description and purpose, as well as some information about what products get distributed in this fashion, to be later linked from the "Cuisine" page (I think is probably better organized this way). You can find it in a sandbox here. If El Jigue or somebody else could take a look and provide some sources and arguments for the "detractors" comment, it would be much appreciated, as well as any other sort of constructive criticism. Feel free to directly modify the sandbox.--EmirCalabuch 21:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

That's great Emir, I'll also be formatting the page in the sandbox if that's OK by you (linking the article to other pages and so on). You might want to look at the Ubre Blanca page where I touched upon the issue of milk. Feel free to make any amendments to that page.--Zleitzen 21:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall any free glass of milk at school (I was however on a semi-internado, a full-day school, which did provide free lunch, so maybe we just ran out of freebies, there). Perhaps checking your source on that sentence is a good idea. However, milk is sold at subsidized prices to families having children under 7, perhaps this is the milk you're refering to (in which case, it is one liter per day, not one glass, and is not given at school, but on milk stores). A curious note, lunch was free, but the snack was not, go figure (anyway, those were the 70s-80s, now I doubt lunch is being given, and I even doubt semi-internados exist anymore). You can edit the page as you see fit, its just a quick draft that needs work. -- EmirCalabuch 22:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've taken that material out of Ubre Blanca. I don't remember now how I came up with it and it's not in the source. It must have been something lodged in my mind. Thanks for bringing that up.--Zleitzen 23:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

"Santeria"

A word for foreigners, evidently, since I never heard it on several visits to Havana and Santiago de Cuba. Regla de Ocha or Lucumi would be right for the widespread practice derived from the Yoruba; and Palo perhaps for the Congolese equivalent. I saw plenty of evidence that these African belief systems were thriving. Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:46, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

For English Wikipedia, we are supposed to use the terms that most readers would recognize first. Santeria would seem to be that term, and the Santeria article seems to explain the derivation reasonably well. Franamax (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

That would be good if the terms mean the same thing, but they do not (though they are related). As the article correctly says, Santería is a syncretic religion, a sticking together of Catholicism and the orishas of Lucumí and Palo, whereas the latter terms refer to the African religions as practised in Cuba. The article does not say what is undoubtedly true: that the African religions have a completely independent existence today, with no connection or dependence on Christianity, and that is a most interesting phenomenon. The Santería page is actually more out of line than this one. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Prostitution is described as a good thing in this article

I think the statement "prostitution, which allowed women to be in control of their own bodies in terms of where and with whom to use them" is at the very least contentious, and at worst deeply offensive. If this is genuinely reflects a school of thought on prostitution, then the statement needs to be re-worded as it is wholly unacceptable in its present form. I was up for just deleting it but what do other people think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.4.220.128 (talk) 23:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The whole of the (overlong) section on Women and dance is poor, and most of it rests on a repeated reference to Jan Fairley's book, which is not published at present! The comments on the 'benefits' of prostitution and vulgar dancing are completely contrary to WP guidelines on neutrality. Just because someone publishes rotten stuff is no reason for it to be imported into WP. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Lachatañeré

I merged some of the (bizarrely emboldened) text on Santaeria, but trimmed the following passage as it seemed to give undue detail and weight to Lachatañeré‘s work. Would be ideal for an article on the man himself, though, so I've preserved it here.

Lachatañeré‘s 1938 book, Oh mío Yemayá, was the first attempt in Cuba to compile the patakíes or myths of the Santería religion. These legends or myths were gathered orally by Lachatañeré from an iyalocha (priestess of Santería) in Regla (Havana), and Lachatañeré, without distorting their meaning, put them in written form so they could be read by people who were not familiar with them. His 1942 book, Manual de Santería: el sistema de los cultos lucumis [Manual of Santería, The System of the Lucumí Cults] was the first serious attempt to organize and systematize Afro-Cuban religion. He distinguished three groups which shared some common traits but took different forms: Regla de Ocha (Santería) of the Lucumí tradition, Palo Monte or Mayombé of the Congo tradition, and the Abakuá Secret Society of the Carabalí tradition. Lachatañeré was opposed to the use of the word “witchcraft” to describe Afro-Cuban religions because he considered it racist and discriminatory. 193.82.198.157 (talk) 08:26, 6 May 2011 (UTC)