On Cuban Mincemeat

On Cuban Mincemeat
November 12, 2013
Osmel Almaguer

HAVANA TIMES — When a Cuban doesn't know what a rissole is made out of,
they say it's a "hoonos rissole." Whoever's next to them then says: "Who
knows what it's got inside!" and everyone has a good laugh.

In addition to the few ounces of ground soy-meat you get through your
ration booklet every so often, sometimes they sell you a type of
mincemeat (at market price) which is practically inedible.

I, a lover of nearly every variant of proper mincemeat out there, have
felt the urge to vomit after putting it in my mouth. It is a mixture of
flour, big chunks of animal fat, tendons and cartilage.

The few times my father cooked this mincemeat, before we had come to the
conclusion that it is "preferable to skip the main course than to eat
the blessed mincemeat," the meat had no flavor, and my father had
seasoned it with everything at hand. We would always end up eating the
stewed potatoes we would add to it to give it more volume.

Despite this, the price of this product is 10 Cuban pesos. Heaven knows
what genius in this country came up with this idea, and decided to
charge an arm and a leg for it. The fact of the matter is that the
product is still out there and, as is always the case, no one can
register a complaint anywhere.

The other day, while looking on the Internet for information on
transgenic foods and genetically manipulated farm animals, I came across
horrifying pictures of chickens without eyes, cows without legs or
mouths and lawsuits brought against McDonalds for fraud.

I pitied the poor US citizens who are eating the flesh of genetic
monsters hidden from them.

Such manipulations of the natural world are ethically questionable and
sometimes horrifying and I do not condone them, but, when an American
eats a burger, at least he is eating meat.

What are we eating when we eat that hoonos mincemeat? Ground up chicken
heads? Legs, tripe, feathers? Dead dogs? The only thing I know is that
whoever sells us that mincemeat wants us to become scavengers.

Source: "On Cuban Mincemeat - Havana Times.org" -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=100009