Comiendo de Cantina

My Big Fat Cuban family around the table.

Yesterday I made enough Arroz con Pollo to feed an army. Which is to say, to feed my family. =D

Everyone who ate, had seconds. Okay, maybe even thirds. Not because they were hungry, but because the food tasted so great. And I made sooo much, I even had leftovers.

My mom asked if they could take some home.

Of course. Not a problem. Oops. No plastic containers.

What to do?

Enter the Cuban-style bento box.

(I hadn't noticed until I filled it, but our meal was totally monochromatic. How accidentally and artistically cool!)

So I went old school and filled the thing up much to my uncle's delight.

Back in Cuba and more recently in Miami, this contraption had a name and function. We call it a cantina. Derived from a time, back in the day, when you could get meals delivered to your house every day from the local cantina on a kind of subscription basis. We called it comiendo de cantina, and eventually the name cantina was used to describe the metal bento box (like this one) that the food came in.