Dossier: Food and ideology in Cuba: food as political control

Abstract

Since 1959, the State's administration and control over the economy, as well as two periods of severe shortages, have modified rituals, perceptions, exercises and aspirations around food with a strong emphasis on ideological discourse. Discernments that commonly regulate free choice in food have been diluted in the political imperatives of the official message: "resistance" and "creativity" in times of crisis, "egalitarianism" and "rationing" in food supply, "special period" or "conjuncture" in shortages.