To Defy the United States, Fidel Castro Built the World’s Greatest Ice Cream Parlor 🔗 🍨 🍦 🇨🇺 😋

The socialist establishment, which is still slinging scoops, seated 1,000 customers.

A vexing issue for Castro, especially on a sweltering summer day in Havana, was the United States cutting off Cuba’s dairy supply. That was a problem, because Casto was obsessed with ice cream. When he was still a young revolutionary in the jungle, a wealthy supporter, Celia Sánchez, sent him an ice-cream cake via mule for his birthday. When the rebellion succeeded, he established himself at the Havana Libre Hotel, where he habitually enjoyed the cafeteria’s milkshakes. In “A Personal Portrait of Fidel,” novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez described Castro polishing off 18 scoops after Sunday lunch. His affection for ice cream was such that the CIA attempted to poison his milkshake. “That was the closest the CIA got to assassinating Fidel,” a retired state security general told Reuters in 2007.