A Cuban resident in Brazil tried a kiwi for the first time and shared his reaction in a Facebook video that has garnered over 46,000 views in just a few hours, becoming one of the most heartfelt testimonies of the viral trend of Cuban emigrants discovering foods they never had the chance to eat on the island.
Manuel Viera, known on social media as "Porelcambio," posted the clip this Monday while visiting a local market where kiwi is sold alongside strawberries, pomegranates, plums, and caimitos. "I had only seen this in books, the little figure, and now I see it every day here at the market. I had never tried this before; I'm going to buy it to see how it tastes," Viera says at the beginning of the video.
Upon bringing the fruit to his mouth, his verdict was immediate: "Just like the one in the cartoons, like in the cookbooks and all that." He then added, "It's good, it's sweet, very delicious. This will make a great dessert."
The reference to "little cartoons" and cookbooks as the only source of knowledge about kiwi illustrates a reality that has shaped generations of Cubans: growing up knowing certain foods only through illustrations, without real access to them. "I had never tried this in my life. I suppose the wealthy in Cuba might have tasted it; I had only seen it in pictures," Viera acknowledged.
The kiwi, a non-tropical fruit that Cuba must import, has been absent from Cuban markets for years, along with raspberries, peaches, and other imported fruits, a situation reported since at least February 2019 and worsened by the chronic shortages the island is experiencing.
The video by Viera is part of a sustained viral trend where emigrant Cubans document their first encounter with foods that the crisis of the dictatorship prevented them from knowing. In September 2025, a newly arrived Cuban in Spain also tried kiwi for the first time and stated, "I never imagined I would be able to eat all of this."
Other similar cases include a Cuban woman surprised by the abundance of fruits in El Salvador, who noted that in Cuba "there are not all kinds of fruit," and a Cuban who took his mother to a supermarket in Brazil for the first time, creating another viral video in May 2025.
The final phrase of Viera's video, spoken in Portuguese —"Look, I’m going to take one of the seconds"— confirms that he resides in Brazil, a country that has become a recurring setting for these testimonies. A Cuban mother who visited a tianguis in Mexico for the first time summarized the sentiment shared by many: "It makes you want to cry thinking about so many things here and so many needs back in my country".
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