A Cuban residing abroad who returned to the island after more than five years shared in a video posted on Facebook how she ended up paying around 16,500 Cuban pesos for red onions and cilantro during her visit, without having asked the price beforehand.
Content creator Yisle Blogs shared that her family started making tamales after obtaining corn in Santiago de Cuba, and that to complete the recipe, she needed onion and cilantro. When she went to find them, a vendor warned her that it wasn't worth the effort: "Girl, don't look for onion, because in Cuba, who knows until December, there are no onions."
Far from giving up, she kept walking until she found a stall that sold small purple onions, just like the ones she had always known. Without asking for the price, she requested that they fill a bag with all the onions in the container and add all ten packets of cilantro that were for sale: "Just put all that cup into a bag and give me all the cilantro you have there because I need to share it with everyone in the family."
When the seller told her the total, the surprise was immense. "When he says to me: '16,000 something.' And I was just left like that," she recalled in disbelief. Upon arriving home, her grandmother asked how much she had spent, and the answer sparked what she herself described as "a scandal."
Yisle estimated that each onion would cost him between 400 and 500 pesos. «People can't cook with onions, girl. That's madness, that's madness», he said. His father later explained to him that they were supposedly imported onions, which would justify the high price during a season when the product is scarce.
Many acknowledged that onions are no longer a staple in their homes. "In Cuba, we rely on scallions, peppers, and cumin, and a lot of magical powders," wrote one user.
Yisle closed her account with a phrase that sums it all up: "I came with my 16,500 pesos very happy about the purchase and they wanted to kill me."
The official price approved for onions at fairs in Havana was 180 pesos per pound last September, but in practice, buyers reported paying between 1,500 and 1,800 pesos per pound in the capital. In other provinces, onion prices have outraged those trying to cook with this basic ingredient: in Santa Clara, reports indicate prices between 1,000 and 1,500 pesos per unit; in Camagüey, between 500 and 800 pesos per onion; in Alquízar, Artemisa, up to 1,500 pesos for a single white onion.
The rise in food prices is not an isolated phenomenon. The official year-on-year inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic beverages reached 42.66% in September 2026, and that category accounted for almost three-quarters of the monthly variation in the consumer price index. In this context, the 16,500 pesos that Yisle spent on onions and cilantro is equivalent to more than five minimum monthly wages, which have been set at 3,210 pesos since July.
Related videos:
Filed under: