The food of Dominican Republic / Comida de República Dominicana is a blend of many different cultural dishes all combined to make style of cooking that is unique to this island. With influences of Taino Indians, Spaniards, African Slaves and many other immigrants, the Dominican dishes have evolved to be some of the best tasting foods we have ever tasted.

This food is high in carbohydrates and starch. Though most recipes are not complicated, most are made from very natural and locally grown foods that are readily available in gardens, trees and from local vendors. Add a little locally raised meat or a fresh catch of fish, and some sazóne (spices) and you have a typical Dominican meal.

The typical Dominican lunch, called La Bandera Dominicana/the Dominican Flag (La Bandera recipe), is beans/ habichuelas and rice/ arroz, meat/ carne, and a salad/ ensalada. The plate is filled with the most rice I have ever seen on a plate. Put  some of the habichuelas/ juicy beans on top of the rice, along with some of the sauce from the meat. Eat this with a large spoon and a knife used for pushing the food onto the spoon. When the beans are made just right and the rice has the perfect amount of salt, along with a little concón/ crispy fried rice from the bottom of the pan, this meal is wonderful. I can see why most Dominicans eat this meal everyday of their lives. It is a joke among my Dominican friends, if they do not eat rice everyday they will not live. After living here for many years I have come to believe this as truth.

If you like desserts and sweets try out a mixture of beans, condensed milk and some other sweet and interesting ingredients. Habichuelas con dulse (habichuelas con dulse recipe) is a traditional dessert served during Easter but can be found the year round if you make your quest in the right places. It's also made into an  ice cream that can be bought at Bon's Helados. I never thought of beans as a dessert and ice cream. This is a must taste for sure.

The fruits grown here are the best. You have never eaten a pineapple/ piña until you have tried one here in República Dominicana.  The Mangos (season May thru September), of which there are two types, are wonderful and very messy. These are best eaten with a knife as the little strings of fiber get stuck in the teeth. Don't let the juice get on your clothes, it stains. Papaya/ lechosa is unbelievably tasty and nothing like what you will find in other countries. Then there are the fruits that you have never seen or heard of before. Some do look ugly but don't snub them because of the way they look. For example, the sweet oranges/china here are so sweet and juicy. You can buy a juice o the street fresh squeezed and many restaurants squeeze their juices fresh. There are a few different types of oranges. The china, which is the sweet /agria orange and is used to make juice (sometimes it is mixed with sugar to make it even sweeter) and to eat whole. Then there is the bitter orange/ naranja sevillana that is used for cooking. The Guava/ guayaba, a pink colored, pear-shaped fruit with yellow skin, is wonderful when made into juice or a greenish colored jelly (try it made into a paste and eaten with some cheese, I was shocked that this tastes so good). I highly recommend everyone tries some zapote juice, the fruit is ugly but the juice is sooo yummy.To learn more of the products grown in Dominican Republic go to our Grown in DR page here

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