Eduardo Machado's Memories of Taste

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 5, 2007 5:15PM

In his new memoir/cookbook Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile's Hunger for Home, author and playwright Eduardo Machado spins a nostalgic account of the Cuban exile experience, framed by meals he remembered as a child in Cuba, as an exile entering the States during the Peter Pan airlifts, as a young actor and writer and, later, on return visits to Cuba as an adult. "All my life I've been trying to get food to taste like I remembered it as a kid", Machado told Chicagoist in an interview last week. "To me, the smell of food like roast pork and tamales is my childhood."

Each chapter of Tastes Like Cuba ends with recipes that co-author Michael Domitrovich said are intended to "make you stop reading the book at that moment and want to try the recipe." He also tested the recipes on Machado. "The goal with the recipes was to get them to the point to where they tasted as (Machado) remembered as a child", Domitrovich said. For Machado, food in the book represents the lost comfort of home, of more secure times. He also hopes that Tastes Like Cuba can serve as a guidebook for the descendants of the first wave of Cuban exiles to have even a slight connection with the homeland of their grandparents. The narrative can drag at times, but Machado is at his best when describing the flavors of his favorite family meals and the memories they evoke in him even today.

In addition to the book, Machado's play The Cook is in production at the Goodman Theatre through November 18. Inspired by a visit to a paladar (an in-home restaurant) on a return visit to Cuba eight years ago, ticket holders to this play can expect to enter a theater teeming with the smell of sofrito emanating from the working kitchen onstage that serves as the play's setting.

Image via Amazon.com.