Painted snails, cocoa and vegan pioneers: Exploring Baracoa, the real old Cuba
The Independent“I had a girlfriend at 21 who taught me how to eat vegetarian food and have sex,” Aristides Smith confesses as I watch him flutter petals and lettuce under the roof he patched together using homes wrecked by 2016’s Hurricane Matthew. But tastes are changing on the island and Smith’s Baracoando restaurant is a trailblazer: organic, vegan food, free meals to city kids, and teaching locals how to cook with plants grown on rumpled mountain slopes. “We’ve lost the custom of using this in food, but I’m using it now in my herbal infusions and desserts.” I wince as my mouth recoils from the intense, slightly citrusy, tongue-curling kick. open image in gallery Chef Aristides Smith runs Cuba’s only vegan restaurant in Baracoa Looking for some R&R of my own, I pedal back towards Baracoa and down to El Manglito beach. Cuba’s cocoa beans, encased in pods of ruddy red and butterscotch yellow, are grown in small plots around Baracoa.
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