Luz Marina Zaldívar, creator of the caldosa de Kike y Marina of Las Tunas, dies

July 22, 2018

Luz Marina Zaldívar Calzadilla, the woman who together with her husband inspired the popular guaracha La caldosa de Kike y Marina, passed away on Thursday, July 19, 2018 at the age of 88.

Marina, known in Cuba along with her husband Kike, for the popular dish La Caldosa, was buried in the Vicente García cemetery, in Las Tunas, after suffering respiratory failure in the provincial hospital "Doctor Ernesto Guevara de la Serna".

Luz Marina Zaldívar Calzadilla (Marina) and José Enrique Pérez Rodríguez (Kike), who passed away on January 15, 2004, made history with the famous broth, starting on July 25, 1979 on Lora Street, in the Peña neighborhood, in Las Tunas, during the celebrations for the XXVI anniversary of the Assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks.

From then on they traveled throughout Cuba, invited to festivals and popular celebrations, representing what was called the Balcony of the East.

The succulent food made with chicken meat, root vegetables chopped into small portions and spices, has been the heart of popular celebrations throughout the archipelago, especially during the anniversaries of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

That thick broth impressed the doctor of pedagogical sciences, Rogelio Díaz Castillo, so much that he set out to compose a contagious and Cuban guaracha, which Inocente Iznaga, (the Nightingale of Cienfuegos), added to his repertoire and immediately spread across the planet.

Since this Friday Kike and Marina rest together in the local cemetery, but they left a cultural heritage to every family and every neighborhood.