An Italian cooking spaghetti in Cuba during a blackout, with his Cuban mother-in-law next to him trying to break the pasta, became the most amusing cultural clash on TikTok this week.
The clip, published last Saturday by content creator Ailet Santos (@ailetsantos), lasts just 57 seconds and was filmed by candlelight during the Cuban blackout.
The scene is simple yet irresistible: Ailet's mother tries to break the spaghetti before putting it in the water, as is customary in many Cuban households, and the Italian boyfriend responds with a firm "no, no, no."
The Italian explains, with all the patience he has left, that in Italy, spaghetti is put into the pot whole, never broken.
The climax arrives when someone tries to break the dough again, and he explodes with a resounding "TRA! TRA! TRA!", leaving the whole family in fits of laughter.
In the video transcript, the Italian's defense can even be heard: "That's... disrespectful to Italians."
In Italy, breaking spaghetti before cooking it is considered a true culinary taboo: long pasta is meant to be twirled around the fork, better holding the sauce and maintaining an al dente texture.
For any Italian, "Romperla" is associated with culinary ignorance and a lack of respect for tradition.
The video description, written by Ailet herself, humorously summarizes it: "Italian spaghetti recipe in Cuba, during a blackout but with all the attitude. My Italian boyfriend vs. my mom."
The detail of the blackout is significant: the scene unfolds in candlelight, set against the backdrop of the serious electricity crisis facing Cuba in June 2026, with generation deficits exceeding 2,000 MW and power cuts lasting up to 50 hours in some provinces.
This combination—cultural clash, family humor, and the Cuban reality in the background—is precisely what makes the video resonate so well with the diaspora.
It is not the first time that Ailet Santos has documented these kinds of clashes between her Italian partner and Cuban customs. In May, she had already starred in another viral video about misunderstandings involving affectionate Cuban expressions that her boyfriend was struggling to understand.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, other content creators have also documented the daily burden of power outages: a young Cuban emotionally collapsed this week while discussing how the cuts affect her psychological health, and another exploded on social media after 25 hours without electricity.
Ailet's video, on the other hand, achieves something more challenging: it makes us laugh, even if only in the light of a candle, at the life we have to live.
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