Coming from a coastal town in an area defined as “Tropical Desert Forest” my first visit to Constanza in my early teens came as a real shock. Geographically and climate-wise you would have a hard time finding two places so different and still located on the same small island. To my 13 (or 12?, can’t
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Before mango season is over I wanted to bring you this recipe. Every Dominican has an opinion on which is the best mango cultivar: banilejos, puyitas, injertos, etc. Truth is if you have never tried a ripe mango in our country you have missed much in your life. I find mangoes imported into non-mango growing
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Cooking with rum is not unfamiliar to Dominicans, totally the opposite actually. Some of the dishes that may be cooked with rum are rabo encendido and chivo liniero (each family has its own recipe and lore about these dishes). With a wide variety of world-class rum available at reasonable prices here, it is no surprise
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Immigrants from the Middle Eastern region, mainly from Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt came to the Dominican Republic and other Latin American countries in the late 19th and early 20th century. At the time, most of the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe were under Turkish rule as part of the Ottoman Empire until
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We once took a poll amongst our readers called “Mondongo: Yucky or Yummy?”, which sparked in me some reflection. My money was on a landslide victory for the Yuckies. I admit it, I voted more than once, in order to better register my enormous dislike. The Yuckies lost. By a lot. For those innocently unaware,
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I have a confession to make: I’m terribly out of tune with the seasons and other natural cycles. It’s actually a bit embarrassing. I used to show up at my corner fruit vendor when I lived in Santo Domingo and ask for mangos when it wasn’t mango season, or avocados when the trees were still
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I am the grandchild of farmers, and so is my husband. If you can count on anything it is on farmers being sensible people. They are rarely too picky about their food, after all they know full well that pork does not come cut into slices or vacuum-packed, and that chicken is not made of thighs
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I’ve mentioned this many, many times: For such a small country this one has so many regional variations in its cuisine that it’s entirely possible to reach adulthood without trying something that is a staple on the other side of the country. Meet exhibit one: Aunt Clara. I was born in the northwest of the Dominican
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Just as we do at home, we aim to keep the food in our blog balanced. This seems intentional, and to a certain point it is, but I’ve also noticed that over time I’ve unconsciously been avoiding repeating too many recipes of the same category. After posting a few rice, meat and other type of
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A few of our readers have commented that they are intimidated by their oven, and sometimes don’t know how to use it. This is a perfect dish to start practicing your skills, it is almost foolproof. Originally I had no intention of sharing this in our blog, but when I saw how just nice it
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I once met somebody who told me that her husband never ate leftovers. Poor lady. I don’t know what positive qualities her husband may have, but for me somebody who would not eat the occasional leftovers cannot be a candidate to be Mr. Aunt Clara. At our home we recycle all the leftovers, and the idea of
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This story started like many others before: with the need to write a recipe and take pictures, and a husband befuddled by the introduction of yet another “suspicious” Dominican dish. – “Honey, what are you cooking”. – “Something you’ve never eaten before”. – “I can see that, but, what is it?” – “Salami guisado” –
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This past week one half of our family gathered at a local resort as we do almost every year. It is a time for relaxation, catching up, and on the practical side of things getting everybody together under the same roof, so to speak. We hope some day we’ll have a home large enough to
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Am I ever glad that I have never called myself an expert on anything. Especially not an expert on Dominican food. Every time I learn something about food in general, or Dominican food in particular, I’m justly reminded that there is much to learn, and with things changing all the time one never finishes learning.
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There is a question I have been asked many times in these ten years: What makes a dish “Dominican”? The answer escapes me. And since Aunt Ilana is the anthropologist here I have put off coming up with my own definition. The fact is that I doubt there will ever be a consensus on the
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Yesterday I got the call from school that every parent dreads: the school doctor told me Nadia had fallen in the playground. Before I went into full panic mode, and with a swiftness that I suppose comes from either training in handling freaked-out parents, or the experience of doing so, she informed me that other
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Valentines Day is approaching, as the media keeps on relentlessly reminding me. I’ve also been told that my husband can apparently only prove his love by showering me with gifts of flowers, perfumes, sparkly stones and other mostly-useless objects. But we are an odd couple, we are. In the 15 years or so that we’ve
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Every culture’s cuisine has dishes that are supposed to have aphrodisiac properties. These dishes range from the harmless to the frankly bizarre. Luckily the dishes in our cuisine alleged to help one’s amorous skills are a pleasure to eat just for the sake of delicious foods. This is one of those dishes. Other Dominican dishes
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Sometimes the day finishes and I look back and ask myself “where did the hours go?”. It suddenly seems as if I got hit on the head and could not account for all the hours in my day. Then I wish my days had at least 12 more hours. I am sure I am not
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“These extra pounds have to go!” I exclaim looking at myself in the mirror. Normally this would not be much of a problem if it wasn’t because I was in the middle of the holidays. Ah, the holidays. Time to overeat, overindulge, and find excuses. Not that I have anything against it, on the contrary,
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Before I get another word out let me clarify something: This is not like the Christmas rice you know. And I know this because I have yet to taste two that are the same. Everybody seems to have a different idea of what it contains and how it should taste. Having said that, I have
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Years ago I shared with our readers the story of how I went from carnivorous to vegan some time during my early 20s. Many a sun has set and risen from that time, and my dietary preferences have changed too. I have gone from carnivorous to vegan, from there I lapsed into vegetarianism, and today I call
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I always wondered how the parents’ occupations influence their kids future career choices. In my case my own parents’ choices (teacher/principal and accountant) are what I call my “nightmare careers”. Trust me, I know the world needs accountants and, even more, it needs teachers, but I have neither the talent nor the inclination for these. It
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The good thing about this season’s celebrations is that it spares no segment of our country. At least everyone celebrates New Year’s Eve with a feast fitting their budget. But let’s not forget those with alimentary restrictions, be them because of religious, ethical or health reasons. A good thing about our moving our sites to
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Have you ever heard of the word “scrumping”? No? You’re not alone. As it happens, neither have most of the world’s non-British English speakers, as far as I could find. And when they have, most of them think of a completely different activity than the one in the minds of Brits. Allow me to explain
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I think we should get a slogan, and if we do I have just the perfect one: Keeping spouses happy since 2001! Some of our favorite comments and emails from our readers tell us how proud they were to surprise their spouse with some delicious Dominican food. It’s not only wives, but husbands, too. It
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There is an enormous variety of pumpkins, but in the Dominican Republic the best known is the auyama (West Indian pumpkin). A vegetable that has many uses in our cuisine: from desserts to rice dishes, from food coloring to filler in stews. This is a less-common presentation, but no less delicious. Auyama is recommended as
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‘Tis the season. For this challenge our sponsor Holland House chose a theme that had me scratching my head and wondering how I was going to meet it: A light Thanksgiving dish with at least a hint of Dominican flavors. I have to say that it took me much longer to come up with something than it took me to
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Every nation has its rules about what goes and what doesn’t when it comes to gastronomy. Coffee here as we know is drunk sweeter than sweet. Those of us who decline any sugar at all are considered eccentric at best. In the same way as Italians who react with horror at ignorant foreigners who flout
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Sometimes an idea comes to me, and although I have no clue how to make what I envision I can still feel, see or taste the result I want. This recipe is one of those ideas. Remember that cornmeal and beef casserole that I shared with you some time ago? Well, it turns out that
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Aunt Clara's Kitchen is a collection of traditional Dominican recipes, recipes inspired by Dominican flavors, as well as the chronicles of the Aunties' adventures in the kitchen and outside.
