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'America's Test Kitchen' co-hosts and local restaurant supervisor on what makes the Cuban sandwich a Florida favorite -- no matter the city

WGCU | By Dayna Harpster,

Published July 1, 2026 at 3:26 PM EDT

Cubans Be Like restaurant makes a Miami-style cuban sandwich with Cuban bread, roasted pork, Serrano ham, pickles and mustard. — Cubans Be Like restaurant makes a Miami-style Cuban sandwich with Cuban bread, roasted pork, Serrano ham, pickles and mustard.

Oranges may be the official state fruit, but choosing a potluck dish that represented Florida proved to be a more complicated matter for "America's Test Kitchen."

Faced with choosing a food to represent every state for its “America’s Potluck” effort celebrating America250 and the Fourth of July weekend, the co-hosts of the PBS Create channel show had a hard time narrowing down Sunshine State possibilities.

There was Key lime pie, of course, said Bridget Lancaster in an interview with WGCU. Other contenders included sour orange pie and chicken empanadas.

“I mean, Florida has such a rich food history and there's so many great flavors and cultures to choose from,” said Lancaster’s co-host, Julia Collin Davison. “But when we were deciding, we really had to think about what kind of ingredients cooks around the country could find. Also, they had to fit into the idea of a potluck, so you had to be able to bring it somewhere.

“And there's also a ton of pies, great pies across the country.”

Since they wanted another sandwich to be included, the Cuban sandwich was crowned for Florida.

Patrons at Cubans Be Like Restaurant in Fort Myers have lunch on Monday, June 29, 2026.

A great deal of research went into the decisions.

“We had a group of historians, we had a bunch of editors and people from around the country all weighing in, talking about which foods they think should represent each state,” Davison said.

“And I have to say, these were the best editorial meetings you can imagine, sitting around with a map, thinking about all the wonderful food that the U.S. has to offer and all the pockets of cultural identity that you could highlight,” she added.

As for Florida and the Cuban sandwich, a bit of controversy arose. There’s a Miami version and a Tampa version. While the Miami version includes Cuban bread with slow-roasted pork, Serrano ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and yellow mustard, Tampa’s version adds salami and sometimes mayonnaise.

The “ATK” hosts said their researchers concluded that the original comes from the Tampa neighborhood of Ybor City.

Locally, Cubans Be Like restaurant serves the Miami version, but is flexible if customers want to add or subtract ingredients because all their Cuban sandwiches are made to order.

“For me, it's always yellow mustard and pickles,” said Eylen Garcia, who has worked at the restaurant for three years and was born in Cuba.

“That's my home and that's where my family is. That's where I grew up,” she said. She ate Cuban sandwiches back then, she said, but they were different. More like “street food,” she said.

Garcia loves that it was chosen as Florida’s food.

“I feel proud. I feel represented. There’s a lot of us here in Florida, a lot of Cubans. We’re part of the culture. We’re part of the food. We’re part of everything that happens. So I feel represented.”

Not surprisingly, Cuban food reminds her of home and family.

“Cuban food is really special to us because it's like our comfort food. It's a very family-oriented thing that we do. Food is a really big thing to Latinos in general, Cubans and Latinos in general. And like, sitting around the table with our families is something that's really special to us," Garcia said.

“We're big into celebration. And our food is part of that. Like sitting around a table with your family for Mother's Day, Father's Day, New Year's, and eating Cuban food is something that means a lot to us. We're not the type to sit in separate rooms to eat and stuff. You have to sit with your family at the table and eat.