Castro to Distribute Pressure Cookers

Associated Press ^ | March 9, 2005, 1:21 PM EST | Anita Snow

[keat]

HAVANA -- Pressure cookers and rice steamers, essential tools of the Cuban kitchen, are the new weapons in Fidel Castro's latest battle to reassert control over the nation's economy.

During a 5 1/2-hour speech broadcast on state TV, Castro said 100,000 pressure cookers would be made available each month -- an announcement that underscored the communist country's continued retreat toward greater political and economic centralism.

The move "will do away with the rustic kitchen," Castro told the Federation of Cuban Women on Tuesday night, saying the new cookers would use half the energy of the homemade ones they will replace.

The program could wipe out what has become a popular, and in most cases legal, private business that uses molds to make pressure cookers from cheap aluminum. Although imported cookers are sold in stores for about $25 -- more than the average Cuban earns in a month -- homemade ones cost about $5.50.

At subsidized prices, the government-distributed cookers will cost about the same as the homemade ones. And the government's cookers can be paid for in monthly installments.

[keat]

There's some lucky folk.

[facedown]

Bought from Walmart, no doubt. 8^)

[Tokra]

Now if they only had some rice to put in them........

[bmwcyle]

Socialism just another word for "Wait a long time".

[Buckeye McFrog]

if they are produced with the typical Socialist workmanship, look for 150,000 Cuban kitchen fatalities by this time next year

[politicalwit]

Rats and rice!!! Got any hot peppers to go along with dinner?

[OPS4]

The pressure cooker, is waitng for Castro, to meet his maker, and then the New Revolution will begin.
OPs4 God BLess America

[tom paine 2]

This is the idiocy of central planning by dictators. The old USSR would under produce toilet paper one year and over produce the next. Fidel must have had a brain fart.

[Ellesu]

Maybe Blanco made a deal to export pressure cookers from Louisiana.

[Obadiah]

Oh, the joy of making monthly payments on a $5 pressure cooker. Wow. And it only took Castro, what, 50 years to produce this economic miracle?

[erikm88]

On Tuesday night, the members of the women's government support group gave Castro a standing ovation when he said distribution of the Cuban and imported pressure cookers would start in April.

More like.. forced to stand at gunpoint...

--erik

[Rebelbase]

I want a pressure smoker.

[.38sw]

Oh, wow, Castro is doing away with the "rustic kitchen" by distributing pressure cookers. What a guy...how modern.

I have an Advantium oven in my kitchen, it's just a tad more advanced than a pressure cooker. I guess they're a little too spendy for Castro to distribute to everyone.

[DManA]

American pols used to promise a chicken in every pot. Castro promises everyone a pot. After 40 years he has gotten Cuba back to American standard c.1900.

[DManA]

At least now they'll have something to pee in.

[printhead]

let me guess; made in china?

[Larry Lucido]

The caller who just hung up with Rush would have orgasmed to hear this news. She said all the Cubans' problems are our fault, and admired Castro.

[Ruth A.]

The move "will do away with the rustic kitchen," Castro

I wonder how long it will be before Castro hears about the microwave.

Actually, I don't have a microwave. I prefer my pressure cooker, my crock pot, the rotisserie, the barbecue... Someday, an avection oven would be nice. Sigh.

[Shermy]

During a 5 1/2-hour speech

Doesn't this violate international norms of cruel and unusual punishment?