Cookies are indeed very much a part of Cuban culture. My suspicion as to why they were not as popular a home cooking item is that pre-Castro air conditioning ( it only began to circulate in the U.S. after 1944) was scarce in small towns in Cuba. Blasting an oven in late July without air-conditioning is very uncomfortable. I do know, as you I am sure do too, that bakeries in Cuba (as evident from those from my early childhood in N.J.) carry a variety of cookies. Polvorones, galletica de Moron (a town in Camaguey), galletica de lima, nido de pajaro (from Havana) and so on and so on.