Our host Jensen Cummings had the pleasure of interviewing Asori Soto, the filmmaker of Cuban Food Stories, after a showing of the film by Flatirons Food Film Festival. Cuban Food Stories documents Asori Soto’s return to Cuba, after living in the United States for the last decade, to reconnect with his homeland through culture, people and most importantly food. After the film Jensen and Asori discuss Cuban cuisine, food bringing people together, and reconnecting with your culture.

Top 5 Takeaways

1. “It’s Complicated when you’re in Cuba in the countryside and there’s a lot of people watching propaganda for years, sometimes they see you as the enemy, and if you’re not going straight forward and talking politics and are just like hey, I want to see what you cook, I want to see how its your life, they feel like you are really talking to them not taking advantage of them. I think we were all getting to know each other in the film and that was the main thing to ring people together.” 7:27

2. As a human being what is luxury for you? For Asori it is a simple feeling, eating a fish on the beach with a friend that was caught and cooked right there. Meeting beautiful people, and eating very fresh, authentic delicious food that is awfully close to us as primates.

3. The film shown in Miami and Havana, two different audiences. People in Havana were extremely interested in it because they do not get to travel around the island, and they don’t know how other people around the island live and didn’t know how they cooked. They felt like they were discovering the island. People in Miami are very anti-Cuba, Asori was scared he would get eaten alive in Q&A. After they saw the film and saw their country in another light then the political light and they were crying and very touched.

4. “I feel like an insider that lives outside, I feel like I reconnected and I made new and reconnected with friends and I feel like they are a very important part of my life right now and if I didn’t make the film I don’t think they would be apart of my life right now. And I really appreciate that.” 33:00

5. “Not only the passion of restaurant people but restaurant people are resilient, from the moment you start a restaurant you know it’s going to be tough, it’s not sexy. They are resilient and work there ass off for little profit margins. The resilience and hard work are not something you can compare to.” 38:30