All that talk about Cuba makes me wonder, have you had a Cuban sandwich?

It’s believed that the first Cuban sandwich was made more than a quincentenary ago the by Taíno tribe in Cuba. They were one of three different cultures that inhabited the island before Europeans arrived. Jorge Astorquiza, a food chemist in Tampa, says the Taínos used casabe bread, made from yucca, to make the dish. Instead of pork – an unavailable meat at the time – the Taínos stuffed fish and bird meat inside the center of two thin, crunchy slices of casabe, which would taste more like a cracker than a slice of dough.

When Europeans eventually arrived on the island – primarily the Spaniards – meats such as pork and ham were quickly introduced into the native’s diets, transforming the sandwich into a succulent, meaty mass. Casabe was substituted for a doughy, bread-like alternative also, which at the time was easier to make for the islanders. “Traces of the sandwich originate back from the Indians,” says Astorquiza, “but the sandwich was really invented with what was brought from Spain.”