The news must not have gotten very far yet, because this Wednesday in the cafeteria of the popular Esquina Caliente, in the city of Ciego de Ávila, they sold full bars for 35.00 pesos and there was no queue.

Moreover, obviously a yellow rice at 25.00 pesos, a boiled egg at 6.00 and a cucumber salad at 4.00, they were, in an inflationary context where a loaf of bread —alone, with nothing inside— can cost you 24.00. (Not to mention that it could be bought without turmoil; because that could also be the news)

Well, there, the La Cueva restaurant offered its lunches without much demand, it seemed, although its workers would admit that they always return to "their cave" with everything sold. It is the same picture of other places where 99 gastronomic units of the province have arrived to enter vulnerable neighborhoods or central streets of the city, with the same objective: to sell food with "an economic line offer".

The quote is from Pedro González Alfonso, deputy director of Gastronomy in the Business Group of Commerce, who at the same time wonders what is economic line? "The cheapest we can sell, almost at cost, which may be very affordable for some and, even so, others may not see it as affordable."

However, until this Wednesday, the reports that reached his office spoke of almost 84,000 rations sold in one day, showing that the alternative that had begun on September 28 - when the country was left with zero electricity generation - itches and "happily" extends.

This quotation mark is from Invasor and has two readings: because although almost half of the gastronomic units in the province have joined the call with affordable and stable offers (every day), the fact has also been the response to the difficulties that they suffer at home.

There are no examples, aggravated in addition to the power cuts, by the extension of the days to fill the gas cylinder. Last Monday the measure became effective for the 12 points of sale in the province, and then Ileana Valdivia Almanza, head of the CUPET commercial area, would confirm that the filling could be carried out every 26 days (instead of every 15, which was the current time) and that the 120 bullets were maintained daily, on average, at each point. Points, which in the main city have more than 4,000 customers associated with each one.

Nevertheless, the fact that around 50,000 clients in the province lengthen their cycles is not the problem of a majority that has not even been able to include themselves in the benefits of a contract. For this reason, when Pedro González confesses that the Gastronomy barely receives 30 percent of the gas quota that it previously had, and that therefore many of its establishments "cook with marabou, with firewood, with whatever they get", the This fact acquires greater importance due to the conditions in which they carry it out.

“A sack of marabou costs us 300.00 pesos and it is not a stable supply either. The intention is to stay until the end of the year, at least. We do it with what little we have, mincemeat, mortadella, meatballs, eggs, rice with by-products, cassava flour croquettes, broth, peas... Sometimes it is cheaper if it is with a percentage of rice that the State still sells us at 10.00 pesos a pound, in others it is bought at 45.00 on the street and it raises the cost of a ration.”

They are parliaments that Pedro does not say are wheelbarrows, but that make up the strategy to serve affordable options that reach the most needy. "The first day we started around 50,000 portions or offers, and today we reach more people and more places," confesses the manager.

The witnesses from the main municipality could be in San Lorenzo, Canaleta, Camino de Jiquí right now. From Morón they could confirm it in Tuero, Patria or Embarcadero. In Venezuela, Jagueyal, on 15, Carolina. In Primero de Enero, Trucutú, Grúa Nueva…

The list includes several communities or points of the 10 municipalities and the idea, according to the first secretary of the Party in the main municipality, Julio Gómez Casanova, is to also add other entities, even if they do not belong to Gastronomy. Anyone who can provide alternatives to the daily menu.