DescriptionMeat or poultry packaging tray. Origin unknown, probably Eastern Bloc, late 1980s. A small rectangular food tray in thin thermoformed plastic (flimsy, semi-translucent, yellowed with age) with a ribbed grid base designed to drain liquid away from the packaged meat. The underside bears several molded marks: GH, 19-14, F69, and 25, likely a factory code, mold identifier, and batch or size reference. A stack of several identical trays has been kept together. The tray form and plastic composition are consistent with Eastern Bloc food packaging of the 1980s, when Czechoslovakia, the GDR, and other socialist states supplied Cuba with industrial and consumer goods including food packaging materials. In Cuba these trays appeared in state carnicerías, used for rationed meat or poultry distributed through the libreta (rationing system). That several were kept is itself telling. In a Cuban kitchen nothing with a second use was thrown away, and a tray that once held meat could hold anything else.