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Cortadito
Pretty to Think So
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“Dad,” they told me over the phone, “these don’t taste like what we eat in Miami.” “That’s because they’re too refined,” I replied. “Even the Cuban recipe won’t taste the same because you’re frying it in fresh oil, not something that’s been used for a week, and the croquetas haven’t been sitting under a heat lamp all day.” I exaggerated, of course—the fast turnover at Versailles assures fresh-fried croquetas, which sometimes require a wait, and it’s one reason I like them. But if you make them at home, a certain element of funk will be missing. As for authentic Old World croquetas, I ordered some at a good Spanish restaurant in Miami when one of my sons was still a pre-teen, and he didn’t like them either. The béchamel sauce was just too authentic. You could taste the nutmeg. He wanted the vulgar version from a Cuban street joint, which he consumes in large quantities to this day.
I can understand. In my own pre-teens my parents enrolled me in a class at a Havana swim club that had a coffee shop. Every day after class I’d have a ham croqueta. Today, the combination of tropical climate and a swim elicits a Pavlovian hunger for a greasy croqueta. So I’m like everyone else, susceptible to comfort food and drink. And since I was born and raised in Cuba, Cuba BC (Before Castro), when foodstuffs were varied and plentiful, I can hang at the coffee window of Versailles, sip thick, sweet coffee and wolf down croquetas fresh from the fryer with the best of them.
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