cubano

In the 1880s and 1890s, cigar manufacturers moved their factories from Havana to Tampa's Ybor City to escape Cuban labor unrest and American tariffs. They brought their workers with them: thousands of Cuban, Spanish, and Italian immigrants who built a neighborhood of factory floors, social clubs, and lunch counters. The sandwiches these workers ate during breaks were the original cubano, assembled from what was available in a labor camp turned immigrant city.

The cubano's ingredients reflected Ybor City's layered population. Cuban roast pork, lechón asado, anchored the sandwich. Spanish ham came from the Spanish community; Italian salami appeared in the Tampa version but not in the Cuban version made in Miami or Havana, reflecting the Italian community's influence in Ybor. Swiss cheese and yellow mustard and pickles on Cuban bread completed the assembly, and the whole thing was pressed flat in a plancha.

Cuban bread was itself an invention of Tampa bakers. Fernando Hernandez is credited with developing the long, airy loaf with a palmetto frond pressed into its top in the late nineteenth century. The bread was soft inside and thin-crusted, ideal for pressing flat. It staled quickly, which meant it had to be baked and sold the same day, making Cuban bread a local product that never traveled far from Tampa or Miami.

The Miami cubano, made by exiles who arrived after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, dropped the Italian salami and used only pork, ham, Swiss, mustard, and pickles. The Tampa version kept the salami and pressed it harder. Both cities claim the original, and neither will cede the point. Food historians tend to give the historical edge to Tampa, while acknowledging that Miami's version became the one the world knows.