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The Cuban playwright Irán Capote published a photo on his Facebook profile this Sunday that speaks volumes: a floor mat carefully placed over an orange ceramic plate, surrounded by complete seasoning, oil, and dried bay leaves. The text accompanying the photo presentation, both ironic and piercing: “I was craving a typical Cuban dish today”.
The dish in question is none other than the legendary “floor mat steak”, one of the most emblematic —and saddest— preparations from Cuba's Special Period in the 90s, when the collapse of the Soviet bloc left Cuba without 80% of its imports and people literally cooked whatever they could find: floor rags cut into the shape of steak, boiled, mashed, marinated with sour orange and garlic, and fried until imagination could no longer take it.
Capote, originally from Pinar del Río and known for both his theatrical work and sharp wit on social media, did not hold back. "What a luxury, it must be said, at least for this type of basic and traditional food, it matches the salary," he wrote, with the well-measured irony of someone who knows that the average salary in Cuba hovers around 6,830 Cuban pesos per month while the cost of living exceeds 40,000 pesos.
The playwright also clarified that he wanted to create the gourmet version, using higher quality ingredients: "I wanted to make the recipe with the yellow ones, but those are more gourmet. And I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew." So he opted for the classic recipe, the one that never fails: "With a little bit of complete seasoning and a smear of oil, this should taste glorious. Those who can, can."
In the comments, Capote completed the technical details of the dish: "Add garlic and onion along with a bay leaf. But I'm going to skip the first two... it's nothing personal." He also included an important nutritional fact: "In a stew, it serves four portions with just one piece." This yield, it should be noted, is something that no chicken from the regulated basket can guarantee today in Cuba, where officials from the regime itself have acknowledged the collapse of the supply of oil, chicken, and yogurt.
Internet users rose to the occasion with their responses. One bluntly named the dish: “The very Creole 'floor mat steak'!” Another offered the perfect pairing: "With a bit of soy sauce… it tastes like barbecue chicken." A user, aspiring to be a high-end chef, suggested breading it with "the greenish bread from the ration" and adding "cumin made from horse moccasins, like in the Special Period." Someone else recalled, "With those little fried plantains, I find you a bit subversive... they have to be the traditional ones for a truly Cuban flavor... and with a squeeze of lemon, which is the foundation of it all... suffer, imperialists!" And there was even a nod to Charles Chaplin in The Gold Rush: “Blessed is the one who can eat a shoe.”
The Food Monitor Program estimated in April that 96.91% of the Cuban population lacks adequate access to food in 2026. The Special Period, for many analysts, has long fallen short in addressing the terrible and multidimensional crisis on the Island in recent years.
Capote is not new to speaking uncomfortable truths. In 2022, the provincial UNEAC prevented him from taking a teaching position at the Theater Instructors School in Pinar del Río after a “thorough review” due to “ideological issues.” The regime closed the classrooms to him; he continued to write. And he kept winning: in 2025, he received the Villanueva de la Crítica Award.
Meanwhile, a survey revealed that one in three Cuban households reported in 2025 that at least one member went to bed without eating. An onion costs 900 pesos in the informal market. And the floor mat steak, as Cubans well know, has no expiration date.
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