Amid Cuba’s current energy crisis, a Catholic priest in Santiago de Cuba shared a traditional method of food preservation on social media, offering a practical alternative to the frequent power outages that disrupt daily life. Father Leandro NaunHungknown for offering valuable resources to cope with the economic crisis, posted a video on Facebook demonstrating the use of salt to preserve vegetables, offering a solution to the lack of refrigerators and constant power cuts on the island.

“Forget refrigerators to keep your food cool. We are ahead of our time,” says the priest.

Preserve vegetables with salt

This time the priest called on two parishioners who, in a practical way, demonstrated how to cover the eggplants with salt to prevent them from spoiling, emphasizing that this method can extend their shelf life by several days. The process involves generously salting the eggplants to expel internal liquids and ensure preservation. They are then placed in cloth-covered glass jars and inverted to facilitate drainage.

The challenges of desalination

However, this is not without its challenges: too much salt can make food difficult to consume. In the video, punctuated with humor and trial and error, the priest and his assistants attempt to desalinate the eggplants with warm water, recognizing that this step requires patience and adjustments. “We know how to salt for preservation, but desalinating for consumption is another matter,” they muse, testing this method as the best way to remove salt.

Daily struggles in Cuba

During the demonstration, the harsh realities of daily life in Cuba emerged: “Let’s use electricity while we have it,” they said, highlighting the daily challenges faced by the population due to frequent blackouts of current. Finally, after several attempts, they used eggplant as a side dish for ribs, demonstrating that despite limitations, it is possible to adapt and find creative solutions to combat the shortage.

The video, like many others shared by Father NaunHung, is a testament to ingenuity and resilience in difficult times.