She was dismayed by what she encountered on her ten-day trip. "The food culture has largely been lost there, they just don't have a lot of ingredients," says Alvarez, who has worked at Chez Panisse for more than two years. "We were told we couldn't get seafood, which is incredible to me because it's a Caribbean island surrounded by the sea. My mom has stories about live crab walking around the kitchen but now there's no fishing industry to speak of."

Back in Berkeley, Alvarez finds an abundance of seafood. Photo: Naomi Fiss

And Alvarez was stunned by the limitations in the kitchen -- from a lack of oils, vinegars, and spices to a narrow range of fresh food. "There's no variety in what type of produce they have – they have one type of lettuce and it's really beautiful, but it's all they have. One lettuce, one type of tomato, and one type of eggplant. We asked the farmers and were told that the state supplies the seeds and that's all they have to work with. Since there are no seasons a lot of the plants don't even go to seed, so it's not like they can harvest their own." Likewise, while beef might be on the menu at many local restaurants, it was never available to order during Alvarez's stay; pork was the only meat of choice on offer at most places.

Raw ingredients weren't the only limited resource on the island. "It broke my heart because at the culinary school and other restaurants we visited they had so little equipment," says Alvarez, a graduate of Johnson & Wales University's College of Culinary Arts in Miami. "I found it difficult just to do what we do, as simple as it is, not having pots to cook in or basic equipment like spoons." Everyone she encountered asked if they could have a pan or a knife, including the tour group's guide and driver. The Chez Panisse team brought pots and pans with them with the intention of leaving them with local chefs. Dinners were held at Old Havana's El Patio restaurant, a state run enterprise, and at Le Chansonnier, a popular paladar. Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, made an appearance at both events and State Senator Loni Hancock and her husband Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates also attended the dinners, as part of the "Planting Seeds" entourage.

Chez Panisse chefs foraged fresh food for their trademark salads served at Cuban dinners. Photo: Nina Wolpow

Alvarez observed other hardships that aren't typical in North American kitchens. One of the restaurants the contingent cooked at didn't have electricity or running water until the afternoon. "I couldn't tell if that was a regular thing or just happened once in a while, but it seemed like they knew it would come on at four," explains Alvarez, a native Spanish speaker, who has done stints at Boulette's Larder in San Francisco's Ferry Building and landed an internship at the Wine Country's French Laundry straight out of cooking school. "We lost electricity several times while we were there in different places. Just very basic things that make things difficult that we take for granted here."

One trip highlight: A sourcing excursion to a farm to find pigs and rabbits for the dinners. The family who ran the farm gathered for a big pot of boiled yucca, a root vegetable similar to potatoes, and the visitors were brought a bowl of steaming yucca to share, accompanied by mojo, a local marinade of garlic, onion, lime juice, and spices. "I grew up eating yucca, it's a favorite, and that was probably the most delicious thing we ate on our trip," says Alvarez, who made yucca ceviche for one dinner cooked by the Chez Panisse chefs.

Danielle Alvarez gives plates a final look before sending them out to Cuban diners. Photo: Nina Wolpow

Overall, though, Alvarez found the local food disappointing. "So much of our philosophy at Chez is about fresh food that's cooked very little. But in Havana much of the food we encountered was frozen, canned, and cooked a lot," she says. "I realized, too, that the limited fresh produce they have doesn't really make it to the people because they can't afford it." She did pick up some tips, however, from a local chef on the fine art of braising pork belly in an oven that crisped the skin to perfection while keeping the meat tender and moist.

Fellow Cuban-American Melissa Fernandez plates dishes before serving Cuban dignitaries. Photo: Nina Wolpow

She also discovered that pizza and pasta (local chefs made pasta from scratch at a cooking demonstration at a local cooking school) are becoming go-to foods in Havana, which intrigued the visiting chefs, known for cooking such dishes to critical acclaim in the Bay Area. "A lot of people have these little businesses now where they sell pizza out of a window in their homes," explains Alvarez. "It's not like it's great pizza – it's just doughy, oily bread with I don't know what kind of cheese, and a smear of tomato sauce." Still, such scenes -- residents dispensing savory pies out of decaying colonial buildings -- would have been unheard of even a few years ago. But as the New York Times notes in recent Cuba coverage: Havana's growing pizza peddlers are one indication of the entrepreneurial spirit of a country long schooled in socialism and the state. These government-sanctioned edible entrepreneurs are viewed by some as a desperate move by the ruling party to kick start the country's flagging economy. Could culinary endeavors be a pathway to prosperity for some Cubans?

It's tough for Alvarez to consider such questions, since her family was doing well before the revolution. At the end of her trip, Alvarez added on a couple of days to visit with the few remaining relatives who never left the island. "I went to the family farm and that was just hugely emotional for me. I was sobbing. I got to see the daily struggles of every day life," she says. "I had pictures with me about how it used to be; buildings that were once there are now just a pile of rubble. The old houses my family lived in were gone. There were just little wooden, thatched-roof shacks on the property."

Alvarez is still processing her visit and how to make sense of it to her family in the States, none of whom have returned to the homeland in more than 40 years. And she wants to focus on the positive things she encountered in a country that bombards newcomers on the ride from the airport with billboards covered in socialist propaganda. True to country stereotype, two in the Chez Panisse crew who needed health care -- Jerome Waag badly burned his hand behind the stove and Cosecha's Dominica Rice endured an inexplicably swollen ankle -- reported that they received excellent medical services, at the same hospital where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was receiving cancer treatment.

melissa fernandezmelissa fernandez

A Cuban-American Chez Panisse Chef Explores Her Culinary Roots