FOOD
The Cuban Lunch
When we were young and out hunting with our father’s, one food item that was always in our lunch bucket was a chocolate bar called Cuban Lunch.
The Cuban Lunch was- and still is- unique.
Clear cellophane wrapping revealed a rectangular cake of chocolate and peanuts sitting in a red fluted wrapper, much like a cupcake.
No day’s hiking or hunting would be without at least one Cuban Lunch.
Our local general store sold them.
The Cuban Lunch came by its name honestly. During the Spanish-American War in Cuba- the same war that propelled Teddy Roosevelt to fame- the chocolate ration for American soldiers was a little square they named the Cuban Lunch.
That name was taken up by a Canadian manufacturer, Paulin Chambers Co. Ltd., that eventually employed 400 Winnipegers to hand-scoop the chocolate into the moulds, then into the trademark red fluted wrapper.
What I didn’t know was our favourite childhood confection disappeared for thirty years as the Poulin Company stopped making them.
All I knew was I couldn’t find a Cuban Lunch for the longest time.
The Cuban Lunch was revived after three decades by a woman from Camrose, Alberta. Crystal Regehr-Westergard remembered every time she’d go to the store, she’d ask her mother if she wanted anything.
The answer was always the same. A Cuban Lunch.
When Regehr-Westergard revived the Canadian chocolate bar the stores couldn’t keep them on the shelves. She would deliver a tens of thousands and they would be gone.
A Facebook page was created, Bring back the Cuban Lunch, as more Canadians realized their favourite childhood chocolate bar was back.
I wasn’t the only one who sent in my childhood memories of the Cuban Lunch, to the new company. I wrote of how the Cuban Lunch brought my father and I together on outings.
That’s a unique feature of the Cuban Lunch website- stories of people remembering their favourite chocolate bar and what it meant to them.
One woman who attended a Catholic school in Saskatchewan remembered nuns distributed Cuban Lunch bars to students.
One man recalled when he was a sea-cadet in the mid 70s, he was given $25 by his parents for his two-week military excursion, and he spent $23 on Cuban Lunch bars.
Another man remembered while living in a small Saskatchewan town, the Canadian Pacific Railway train would stop and a porter would distribute penny candies to the kids, including a Cuban Lunch for ten cents.
A Cuban Lunch became Canadiana, a unique Canadian experience for a lot of people. The favourite chocolate bar, once revived, was welcomed back again.
As soon as I saw them back, I bought a dozen. Every bite brought me home again.
