Dominican Food- From the Earth to my Mouth

I feel like a could write a whole book about food in the Dominican Republic, but I thought I should start with one blog. I am so lucky to live in a rural town in the DR. Daily I get to eat fresh fruits straight from the trees. I can see directly where my food is grown. I watch the seeds being planted, the crops being harvested, and the products being cooked.

Breakfast in the DR mostly consists of viveres which are yucca, plantains, or bananas with onions or eggs or ham. Sometimes people make soups for breakfast as well. Then lunch, usually around 12 marks a long break in the day where the whole family takes time to eat at their house and then rest afterwards. This meal often consists of la bandera, rice, beans, and meat. Dinner often at dusk often consists of bread and hot chocolate, oatmeal, or more viveres.

Lately due to a drought, people in my community have been low on income and therefore many families have not had meat for some time or have to skip breakfast or dinner if they do not have money for these meals. The vast majority of families in my community derive their income from agriculture. The rainy season was supposed to arrive over a month ago here, the time when people can start planting their crops, yet the rains have not yet arrived. It hasn’t rained in many months here. The fields are coarse and brown; the animals are dying of dehydration. The communities depending on agriculture are really struggling at this time.

Because it has been so dry lately I have been very tentative to start my own garden, but I really want to plant as soon as the rains come. I would love to have my own garden primarily with vegetables. I hope to plant peppers, sunflowers, onions, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, and more. My first attempts at sprouting these seeds has not proved successful as the tubs that I have been planting in always get blown over my the incredibly strong wind or the goats come over to eat the small plants. I hope that once the rains come my success rate will increase, but only time will tell. One of my goals of peace corps is to be able to make a full meal from things only I have grown. We will see how it works out.

Despite this drought, people are still incredibly generous and there is still fruit growing on the trees. I eating so many fresh fruits out in the fields, juice dripping through my fingers, flavors enriched by the freshness of the food covering my taste buds. Here I have had banana, passion fruit, cherries, pears, grapes, oranges, lemons, mango, and coconuts straight from the trees. (Pardon my lack of English translations, but I am not sure the English words for these exotic fruits.) I have also tasted jiguera, tamarindo (a fruit tasting just like my favorite childhood candy-warheads), lechosa, guayaba, guayavana, and cawhill straight from the tree. I probably eat lunch at a neighbors house every three days. People are so generous, constantly offering to cook for me or surpising me by bringing fresh fruit to my door. When I eat at my Dona’s house, I can often see exactly where my owyama, a type of squash, comes from. I have watched the pea plants grow from seedlings to harvest and have helped cooked these to accompany my rice. I have watched peanuts growing in the back yard and then harvest- roasted and rolled in salt for a perfect snack.

Not only can I see directly where my fresh fruits come from, but I can also see directly where the meat comes from. When my Dona wants to add chicken to the menu for the daily lunch, she will pick out a older hen and have her son chase it down. The chicken, very aware of her impending doom, fights with all of her might to escape, but in the end she is always trapped, sometimes she is tied to stove until it is time to cook her and hten her neck will be broken with one swift crack. Hot water will be boiled over the fire in the kitchen hut and she will be dunked in this boiling water, her feathers are all plucked and discarded. Next she is rinsed in new cold water and a machete is taken to cut off her head, the bottoms of her feet, and to separate the body into pieces sizable for broiling. Her innerds are cleaned out and given to the dog or the cat. Often the scraps that will not be eaten are thrown to the other chickens looking for food. It is a bizarre site watching chickens fighting over the wing tips of chicken. When the chicken is cleaned and cut, often my Donas clothes are now covered in blood spatter and the whole kitchen smells of stale flesh, the chicken is marinated in lemon juice and oregano. The chicken is then placed in a pot over the fire and parsley, onions, garlic, and cilantro are mixed with the chicken and cooked until it is a deep brown. Once my Dona choose a chicken still laying eggs and inside this chicken were partially formed eggs. It was the coolest thing to see these three small eggs within a chicken, each one bigger then the other, the first one no bigger than a dime, not yet ready to be laid. Not to waste anything, we hard-boiled these eggs and ate them. The feet of the chicken are eaten here and many people prefer the feet. They are gamey and you eat the cartilage between the toes which has a creepy crunch, but with good flavoring they aren’t half bad. People also eat the neck here, which is stretchy and gamey as well.

Not only can I see the process of a chicken growing from a chick to be cooked for lunch, but I can also see directly where my pork comes from. In the US I was a pescatarian (vegetarian who eats fish) for 5 years before the Christmas of my senior year of college I decided to start eating meat again, to get my stomach accostumed to meat so that by the time I left for Peace Corps I could eat all of the strange meats placed on my plate. I really did not know much of what to expect for food and what my nutrition options would be in Peace Corps and so I planned for the most extreme. In reality, it is very easy to be a vegetarian in the Dominican Republic, I have many friends in site who say that they are vegetarians, just because they prefer not to eat the meat how it is prepared in site. To me I still get a slight rush from eating meat where I can see directly where it has come from and I often feel extremely guilty turning down food, especially meat when visiting someone’s hous. For these reasons I eat meat when it is offered to me, but do not buy my own meat to cook. Pork is a more expensive meet and is usually reserved for special ocassions here. I am not the biggest fan of pork here as I have seen how it is prepared and I prefer my meet to not be as fatty or hairy. With pork, the entire pig is used, and almost more than not you will receive a cube of pure fat from the pig. If not pure fat you might also have the skin of the big, often still covered in dark black hairs. If you are lucky enough to get a good piece of pork meat it is often very tender and very flavorful. People often cut up this pork, season it with lemon juice and oregano, place it on their laundry line or on the dirty tin roof for a day, and then cook it in a pan over a fire with seasoning. I am not a very picky eater and I will definitely try everything twice, but I have found I do not like one dish here, mondongo. Mondongo is intestines. It is a Dominican delicacy that some people go gaga for, but I am not the biggest fan. It is a grayish color with a most unpleasant odor to me and it has a slimy, greasy texture.

All in all, although I sometimes avoid the meat, the food here is delicious and incredibly fresh. Although at times I would prefer more flavors or spices, I have been pleasantly surprised by the variety and flavor of the food here. I feel so incredibly lucky especially the times I realize, I am in the Caribbean and I am stuffing my face with fresh food straight from the earth. That will never get old.