Can a Cuban sandwich use Puerto Rican bread? This Tampa bakery says yes.

TAMPA — The Cuban sandwich might be delicious, but it’s also contentious. Debates have raged for decades about whether a real Cuban includes Genoa salami and where the sandwich comes from: Tampa, Miami or Cuba?

The co-owner of La Creacion Bakery would not weigh in on the origins of the sandwich but has a strong “no salami” stance.

That’s the popular opinion in Puerto Rico, where he was born and raised, Kelvin Cruz said. So it’s also how Cuban sandwiches are prepared at his bakery, which serves Puerto Rican fare at locations in Tampa, Wesley Chapel and Brandon.

Here’s a new debate: What about the bread?

La Creacion Bakery uses Puerto Rican bread rather than Cuban bread. Does that still make it a Cuban sandwich?

“Yes,” said Cruz, who opened his bakery with business partner Ramon Ruiz five years ago this month. “We call it a Cuban sandwich.”

La Creacion Bakery makes two types of Puerto Rican bread — Pan Soboa, which means “kneaded bread” and is sweet and soft, and Pan De Agua, which means “water bread” and is like Italian bread with a crust that is hard yet slightly softer than Cuban bread.

A sandwich of marinated roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, dill pickles and mustard on Pan Soboa is considered by many to be a Medianoche, which is basically a Cuban sandwich on sweet bread, Cruz said. But those same ingredients on Pan De Agua undoubtedly make a Cuban sandwich, and that’s how La Creacion Bakery serves theirs.

At least one area eatery agrees. Tampa’s La Bahía Bakery also uses Pan de Agua for Cuban sandwiches, also minus salami, according to its online menu, but the Tampa Bay Times was unable to reach them for comment.

What do Tampa’s Cuban sandwich experts think?

“Is it an authentic Cuban sandwich? No,” said Victor Padilla, who holds a Cuban Sandwich Festival in cities, including Tampa, throughout the state. “It has to have the original style Cuban bread. Puerto Rican bread is good, but it is not Cuban bread.”

But Padilla admits to being a bit of a purist when it comes to bread. He doesn’t even consider Miami’s Cuban bread to be authentic. He said it’s flakier and softer than what is baked here in Tampa.

“Miami’s bread is not as good,” Padilla said. “It doesn’t have the consistency of ours.”

His festival has a contest for the best Cuban sandwich. If La Creacion Bakery were to enter enter theirs in the May 26 event in Ybor City, Padilla said, it would be placed in the non-traditional category, where past entrants have used donuts for bread and included Cuban sandwich sushi rolls.

But unlike such unique variations, said Andy Huse, author of “The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layer,” using Puerto Rican bread for Cuban sandwiches is “pretty common.”

“Even Cubans who are making Cuban sandwiches, if they can’t get Cuban bread, seek out Puerto Rican bread,” he said. “People have to work with what they have, where they are. There’s nothing wrong with putting Cuban sandwich ingredients on different bread. I’m not a doctrinaire when it comes to Cuban sandwiches.”

Pressing the sandwich, Huse said, pretty much masks the type of bread as long as it has a crispy crust. He gives La Creacion Bakery credit for baking theirs on site.

Cruz, 45, uses the same bread recipes as his father, who owned a bakery in Puerto Rico, but does so with a mix of modern technology and old school methods.

The 26-inch loaves of bread are kneaded and shaped with machines. They rise naturally over nearly 24 hours rather than using a proofer, which is a chamber that helps bread rise in a few hours through controlled humidity.

Their three locations combine to bake around 4,000 loaves a week, some of which are sold to six area food trucks and three restaurants.

The Cuban sandwich is among the bakery’s top four items at each location, with around 120 a week sold at the Tampa spot at 11258 W. Hillsborough Ave.

“We tell them it’s made on Puerto Rican bread,” Cruz said. “No one complains because it’s good.”