
Nitza Villapol
the queen of Cuban cooking
Though she spent her early childhood Manhattan, Nitza Villapol is a modern Cuban icon. With education in teaching + nutrition, it was only natural for her to pitch her "home cooking school" to execs in the new media landscape: television. For Nitza, cooking was political, effecting social change. After all, what we eat is how we live...and Nitza nailed the winning combo of food + identity.
Cocina al Minuto ~ the show that ran a record-making 40+ years ~ made her the woman who taught generations of Cubans how to cook. Her contradictory public image is of a woman both embittered + heroic, both ridiculed + tragically misunderstood. But there's no doubt...her influence on la cocina cubana is limitless.
Cocina al Minuto | longest-airing television cooking program...her show predated Julia Child's The French Chef by nearly 15 years. Copies of her cookbooks were smuggled out by exiles {often reprinted without her permission ~ or payment} + are an essential wedding gift for Cuban brides ~ and inspiration for countless food bloggers
inventive cooking | redefined Cuban classics to meet the dire food shortages of the post-Soviet era ~ always pushing to incorporate more vegetables in the starch-and-meat-heavy Cuban diet {for both health + availability}
communism | supported the Party + the revolution, even during the period of catastrophic food scarcity of the 1990s. Both criticized and admired for using her show to support the Castro regime's policies
1933 | moved to Cuba with her parents. She would remain loyal to her island homeland for the rest of her life, staunchly claiming her Fidelista identity. Nitza, who was crippled by polio in her 20s, lived with + cared for her mother until Juana María's death.
1951 | Cocina al Minuto moved to television {it first aired on radio in 1948}, lasting until 1998. Prior to the Cuban Revolution, it was heavily sponsored by American food companies ~ early episodes and editions of the cookbook La Cocina al Minuto make quite a contrast to her later more-with-less ethos. Rognons Sautés au Champagne, or potato mayonnaise?
1993 | Cocina goes off-air overnight. Food shortages due to the Cuban economic crisis {the Special Period in Time of Peace, triggered by the fall of the USSR}, finally grew too great + a cooking program was too awkward to sustain. By the time the government conceded it needed Nitza back, she was too frail to return.
from | to
home economics student | prima personality in Cuban cooking
born on
1923
born in
New York City
birth name
Nitza Carmen Marie Villapol Andiarena
~ named after a Russian river, the Nitsa ~
known as
Nitza
citizen of
Cuba
daughter of
Francisco Villapol + Juana María Andiarena
~ her mother was known for whipping up Cuban comfort food for homesick exiles in Manhattan ~
grew up in | lived in
New York + Cuba | Cienfuegos, Cuba
educated at
La Escuela del Hogar {1940} | University of London {nutrition, 1940s} | University of Havana {Ph.D in pedagogy, 1948}
loved studying
teaching, nutrition + recipe writing
mother of
Marcos E. Lopez Gonzalez {adopted}
advocate for
healthier eating, and flexibility + creativity in the kitchen
in her spare time
didn't cook at home
~ she relied on her adopted son or her friend + assistant Margot Bacallao ~
died on
October 20, 1998
~ Havana ~
image credits
Varreño | Radiocentro | Miami Herald
Comida Studies
"Cooking—surely—is an art, an art for every nation, a minor art that forms part of the culture of the people."
Cocina Cubana {cited by JMI Traduzioni & Corsi di Lingue} | 1956
"Instead of asking what ingredients were needed to make this or that recipe, I began to wonder what recipes were possible with the products available."
¿Quién va a comerse lo que esa mujer cocina? | unknown
"What does the Cuban homemaker have and what can be done with it?"
Miami Herald {quoted in her obituary} | 1991
"It's not easy to grow old. Young people think we're dead but still breathing."
Trading with the Enemy | september 1992
"I used to think it was very important to be popular. Now I don't give a damn."
Trading with the Enemy | september 1992
for further reading about Nitza Villapol:
curated with care by Meghan Miller Brawley {july 2015}
La Cocina al Minuto
Nitza on the set of Cocina al Minuto. When the show began in 1948, the markets were full of American products. After the revolution ended in 1959, Nitza adapted her recipes for the new Cuba. Famous for pushing fruit + veg on the meat-and-rice-heavy traditional Cuban diet.
La Televisión Cubana {via leniermusic}
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Nitza's first classic
Nitza's first cookbook features recipes suited to the glamorous life of the upper and upper-middle classes in pre-revolutionary Cuba, where she made a name for herself teaching cooking classes to young brides. This cookbook was smuggled out of Cuba after the revolution, and Nitza never received a penny from reprint sales {like the copy pictured}.
via Greenacres Coins and Collectibles | ebay.com
© all rights reserved