Tastes Like Cuba

OneCojimar, 1958I awoke to the smell of boiling milk. Not 1% or 2% or soy milk or rice milk. This milk had never touched a cardboard box. It had been freshly drawn, hours before, delivered at dawn from my grandmother's small farm just outside town. Every morning in our house was scented with the aroma of raw milk boiling with a little bit of salt.If it were in my apartment now it would be contraband, a smuggled delicacy, but then, the foamy, silky, still-warm sweetness was a familiar part of every day. Once boiled, the cream would be ladled out and pressed into butter by our cook, Conchita, but at this early hour there was another priority. My grandmother Concepcion, along with Conchita, would be responsible for bringing life to a houseful of people, preparing the cafe con leche for at least fourteen.It was the summer of 1958, and the Revolution was raging on. There was fighting in the Sierra Maestra and the surrounding provinces, far enough from our home for us to feel safe. Butevery night when Concepcion sat in the back of the house listening to the pirate radio frequency that Fidel Castro broadcast from, our sense of urgency and danger grew. There was an occasional bomb in Havana, and when I went into the city to go shopping with my mother, I would scan the storefronts and alleyways, making note of suspicious characters who could be the next martyrs for our cause. I sometimes feared that my father would go to work one morning and never return.A quiet tension resulted. We were protected by the house, and we felt safe in our own little world. Still, I knew something was going on, but only because I listened. To the deliverymen who brought bright yellow bananas and pineapples. To the baker from town with his fresh bread and pastries. To the fishermen selling their early catches. And most of all to my grandmother Concepcion, whom we called Cuca, sharing the highlights of last night's broadcast with Conchita as the milk bubbled away."He said last night that he would