San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Sandwich invites connection to heritage
A rarity in the Bay Area, this pop-up Cubano is a delectable symbol of island nation
I have a lot of feelings tied up in sandwiches. If my emotions were an investment portfolio, a financial analyst might advise me to diversify.
My favorite thing to eat is a torta ahogada — the drowned sandwich from Jalisco, Mexico — and I’ve been known to dabble in a bit of sandwich therapy. But there’s one that represents my connection to my mixed heritage: the Cubano sandwich.
My dad was half Cuban. I have few memories of my grandfather, who left Cuba when he married my grandmother, but I credit him for my love of coffee. He and my dad left the earth when I was a kid, taking with them my connection to that part of my bloodline. But I always had the Cubano, which I viewed as a way to participate in the culture. As a teenager, and into my 20s, I chased the dish, looking to mend a severed connection. I thought, perhaps naively, I could find a hidden spark inside the compressed, cheesy pork sandwich.
Recently, I tasted one that dredged up those sentiments — and gave me a renewed appreciation for the dish.
Cuban cuisine might be underrepresented in the Bay Area, but the region is home to one of the finest Cubanos I’ve ever had. This impressive sandwich comes from Clandestina Cocina, a Cuban pop-up run by Lilian Duran, who uses the popular dish to bring attention to lesser-known parts of her culture and cuisine. Duran’s Cubano ($18) is delicious and innovative — a monument of the dish’s evolution.
However, she, like me, has complicated feelings about the sandwich.
To Duran, the sandwich is foreign. It’s not something she grew up eating in Cuba — her closest association is a roast pork sandwich known as pan con lechon. The Cubano as we know it today is a product of immigration. It originated from the Cuban mixto, a sandwich of mixed meats and cheese, according to the book “The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers.” After the Cuban revolution, immigrants and exiles settled in Florida, bringing various preparations of the sandwich. In Tampa, salami is a common inclusion, while Miami is credited for pressing it. The main disconnect for Cubans, like Duran, is access; most simply can’t afford the ingredients.
Duran’s version is her reclamation of the sandwich.
She starts by swiping a roll with mustard, then layers on smoked ham, garlicky roast pork, pickles and Swiss cheese. She places it on a hot plancha, then smashes it with an iron press, concentrating all her weight into her arm. The pressure and heat cause the cheese to gush out, turning into crisp cheese coins. After slicing it on
the diagonal, she serves it with thin plantain chips and her own innovation: a side of verdant mint sauce. The latter is the perfect foil for the sandwich, giving it a bright herbaceousness that eloquently cuts the indulgence. With the help of the sauce, the massive, juicy sandwich achieves majestic balance. I always ask for extra.
Duran left Havana in 2015. Five years later, she started Clandestina Cocina as a pop-up from her home. She would sell plates of peppery braised beef, also known as ropa vieja, through social media. Two years later she joined La Cocina, an incubator in San Francisco that helps food entrepreneurs formalize their businesses.
(Full disclosure: My significant other works at La Cocina.) Now, you’ll regularly find Clandestina at the Livermore and West Oakland farmers markets.
The Cubano is Duran’s least favorite item. Ultimately, she decided to include it on her menu as a tribute to her family in Florida, who migrated there after the revolution. She might not have the same nostalgic connection to the dish, but her family does. To her cousins, the sandwich is a symbol of the island.
“That’s what they know of Cuba, it’s what makes them feel Cuban,” Duran said. “It’s not their fault that they weren’t able to go back.”
The Cubano doesn’t exactly make me feel Cuban, nor does it give me direct insight into the culture, but it’s a totem of the family I’ve buried.
As for Duran, she hasn’t returned to Cuba since 2018. Today, she’s an American citizen. While the sandwich inspires conflicting emotions, it, too, now represents her. “I’m not from here, (I’m) not from there,” Duran said. “And I guess the sandwich is the same.”
Clandestina Cocina: 4-8 p.m. Thursday. 2155 Third St., Livermore. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday. 1809 Peralta St., Oakland. instagram.com/clandestina.cocina