Itchy feet, bottomless pit

“This is the best food in the word!”

Our dinner arrives with this pronouncement: two generous slabs of pork, heaped with rice and beans, and platters of rainbow fruit.

Obel, our host in Viñales , isn't shy with the portions or his compliments. His wife, Yoly, beams. Obel may be head chef at a local hotel, but in this casa particular's kitchen it is madam who reigns.

My companion, finicky, French, and I dig in. On tonight's menu is lechon asado, slow-cooked pork shoulder that melts into a garlicky marinade, crowned with cumin and oregano, married with rice and black beans.

“Esta muy, muy bueno!” I said in broken Spanish through shovelfuls of food. The Frenchman nods. Yoly's smile zooms to her ears.

To say that Cuban cuisine is, quite simply, history in a mouthful, is not far from the truth. For the revolution didn't just crystallise the Che phenomenon: it cryogenically preserved Cuban cuisine. We are eating as Cubans have always eaten since the economic embargo was first imposed. Most Cubans have yet to taste coq au vin or drink sake. No ubiquitous Starbucks or Subway in the cities, at least not yet. As Cuba unfurls creeping globalisation looks set to change things, but for now Cuban cuisine, like its culture, remains authentic: born of its salad bowl heritage of African, Spanish and Caribbean influences, yet unmistakably its own.

“Here in Cuba we eat local only. Fresh, no pesticides. This banana and this passion fruit? From my backyard. And this pig? From the jungle nearby. This morning my brother-in-law caught it, like this—” He harpoons the air and mimics a flailing piglet. His youngest daughter squeals.

The Frenchman offers me a queasy grin.

After dinner we adjourn to the rooftop terrace. We sink onto wicker chairs, next to a greying water tank. The tobacco fields are an unbroken, undulating carpet, from which mogotes rise like yawning yellow masts under the gauze veil of dusk. A cornet of mosquitoes forms over each head. We watch the sun dissolve into a jade sea as a choir of crickets begin its nightsong.

Obel opens a box and selects three cigars. He clips the ends and passes us a hand-rolled cigar each. Then he pours a serious measure of rum for us both. “Try our farmer's cigars,” he says. “The best. No labels.”

We light our cigars. The blue smoke curls, dissipates. He is right of course. There is no need for labels when it's the real deal, not in Cuba. Authenticity does not need a name.