Eating Rice in DR, or NOT

dv8

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Sep 27, 2006
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I HATE the food here

it gets worse when you realize the food is just so monotonous it makes you consider cannibalism. we occasionally eat at in laws house and i have never even seen them not eat rice and beans. always damn rice and beans. i like lots of dominican dishes but my favourites are more special occasion type of fare, like sancocho. at home i cook every day and i do as much variety as possible, from home made sweet and sour sauce to pierogi. never the same dish twice in a row...
 

dv8

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Sep 27, 2006
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the basic problem with food in the DR is that everybody cooks it the same way.

the basic problem is that the only ones cooking on daily basis here are your average rice-and-beans dominicanas. in poor families it is a poor dominicana cooking. in rich families there is a poor dominicana cooking as well. so everyone eats exactly the same food, rich or poor. granted, the rich have restaurant option but i often hear them say they prefer home cooking anyway.

i asked once our maid to cook sancocho. she said "no possible, no hay sopita aqui". i put a selection of herbs and spices in front of her and said "try this". she complained and complained but did as told. then she tried the sancocho and claimed it was super good. ha!
 

the gorgon

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Sep 16, 2010
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the basic problem is that the only ones cooking on daily basis here are your average rice-and-beans dominicanas. in poor families it is a poor dominicana cooking. in rich families there is a poor dominicana cooking as well. so everyone eats exactly the same food, rich or poor. granted, the rich have restaurant option but i often hear them say they prefer home cooking anyway.

i asked once our maid to cook sancocho. she said "no possible, no hay sopita aqui". i put a selection of herbs and spices in front of her and said "try this". she complained and complained but did as told. then she tried the sancocho and claimed it was super good. ha!

your social analysis is spot on. yes; the rich get the poor to cook for them, so they too eat yuca and rice and beans, because the poor do not know here it is you put the match to light the oven.
 
Feb 7, 2007
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it gets worse when you realize the food is just so monotonous it makes you consider cannibalism. we occasionally eat at in laws house and i have never even seen them not eat rice and beans. always damn rice and beans. i like lots of dominican dishes but my favourites are more special occasion type of fare, like sancocho. at home i cook every day and i do as much variety as possible, from home made sweet and sour sauce to pierogi. never the same dish twice in a row...

Even my daughter says "arroz otra vez" and makes a face when her mom cooks ... so every other day we buy food at the supermarket cafeteria after I pick her up from school..let her mom eat the frikkin rice. In my country in Europe we eat rice maybe once a week, at the most. When I go home for Xmas and my mom cooks rice for a dish, I tell her to make something else for me and my daughter because we both are fed up with rice.
 

AlterEgo

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Even my daughter says "arroz otra vez" and makes a face when her mom cooks ... so every other day we buy food at the supermarket cafeteria after I pick her up from school..let her mom eat the frikkin rice. In my country in Europe we eat rice maybe once a week, at the most. When I go home for Xmas and my mom cooks rice for a dish, I tell her to make something else for me and my daughter because we both are fed up with rice.

I get sick of rice quickly too, maybe because we never ever had it when I was growing up. Rice was delegated to being sick with "the runs" in our house. It permeates Dominican meals, from the poorest in the barrios to the richest in SD. When we're in DR, we go through an inordinate amount of rice, at least 30 pounds a month, sometimes more.

When we eat out in DR, I don't even want to SEE rice.
 

dv8

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i do not eat white rice. wild rice, yeah, con gusto. but white? no. nope. never ate rice in 7 years here. i love beans, thou, so i always have a serving of beans with my food. i just pour it all over whatever else i eat. it's grossing my mother in law to no end. for 7 years with every meal she brings me a separate bowl for beans and for 7 years i've been ignoring this suggestion. all that she achieved is that i do not want to go and eat there anymore.
 

AlterEgo

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i do not eat white rice. wild rice, yeah, con gusto. but white? no. nope. never ate rice in 7 years here. i love beans, thou, so i always have a serving of beans with my food. i just pour it all over whatever else i eat. it's grossing my mother in law to no end. for 7 years with every meal she brings me a separate bowl for beans and for 7 years i've been ignoring this suggestion. all that she achieved is that i do not want to go and eat there anymore.

I'm not crazy about the rice sold in DR, because we ship boxes and drums down every year we also ship our rice down because we like Jasmine rice the best. When you ship a box, most companies allow you to send a 25 pound bag of rice and a jug of oil outside the box, at no additional cost - so we go to Sam's Club and buy the rice and the big 2.5 gallon bottles of oil.

As far as beans, I must have been Cuban in my last life, because I LOVE black beans. Red ones, not so much.
 

dv8

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this year we are sending our first barrel. we bought some wild and red rice and a bunch of other stuff that you cannot get in DR on the cheap, like sundried tomato, good olive oil, baked beans, branston pickles and so on. cannot wait!
 

AlterEgo

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this year we are sending our first barrel. we bought some wild and red rice and a bunch of other stuff that you cannot get in DR on the cheap, like sundried tomato, good olive oil, baked beans, branston pickles and so on. cannot wait!

And I bet that everyone you know will be begging for the barrel when it's empty. I swear I'm going to bring down a permanent marker and put my name all over the new ones - it's amazing how they grow legs and disappear.

I'm going to move some of these posts to a new thread because dv8 and I have taken this one off topic.
 

dv8

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oh, thanks, AE.

barrels: miesposo has chemicals delivered in them too and we use one as a rubbish bin. drilled large holes in the bottom so it is of no use, really, and not worth stealing. the incoming barrel... we will give it away, i am sure.

rice: in my country rice was seen for years as child food. i remember that back in the communist times we did not even have rice but just cracked rice pieces. to be cooked with milk. yuck! so i never ate rice as a child and i will damn sure not be told to eat it as an adult. i do not even know how to cook it. we have a zojirushi rice maker and that's as far as it goes...
 

Smart

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Jun 16, 2012
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I am the cook in our house for all of the above reasons, Dominican food bores me to starvation, even eating it I often find myself off into a daydream about hayfields and dandelions just to make passing time a little more interesting.
This is why you rarely find a dominican fridge well stocked with food (crap yes, real food, no!), cupboards also (lots of premade sauces and quick fix crap, but real food, herbs n spices no) and you can see the most battered and burnt stove but when you open the oven door it is brand new.

I never eat in Dominican restaurants either as I find myself ordering something foreign and they can't cook it properly.

My oartner only steps into the kitchen once in a blue moon and that is the one culinary use, they cook rice better than I can. And that is only when I want to make a curry which I can not do unless I can find a can of the stuff somewhere, maybe Pricesmart or some expat supermarket on the Northcoast.
 

rogerjac

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All my life I have loved rice. Anyway you made it I would eat it. Probably a couple times a week. Down here rice every day makes me cringe. Make up some potatoes, pasta of some sort,anything but rice every day is slowly going to kill me. As for barrels, I had 2 shipped, when they arrived my brother in law wanted one. I told him I was going to sell them as I saw them for more than 1000 pesos. He tells me that they can be bought for 200 pesos. I order 5. Still waiting for my 5 barrels and he took my barrel
 

Smart

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Never got my head around the plastic bag thing, or even tin foil under the lid, I thought it might be to make things airtight, but my partner even does it (with tin foil) when using an air tight (as air tight as a regular pot gets) pot.
I have since bought a rice cooker which cooks rice perfectly and turns itself off when it's done, but it can still get a little stodgy unless I good the living day lights out of it past regular cooking time. I have never had an issue with rice anywhere else.
 

rogerjac

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I have been thinking of a rice cooker but was told that it wont burn the rice at the bottom. I hate burn't rice, they love it. Even the dog won't eat burn't rice
 

AlterEgo

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I'm thinking if it's Jasmine, wild or Basmati it's alright.

I love Jasmine. A couple of Brit friends raved so much about Basmati that I bought a 20 pound bag of Royal at Sam's. I messed it up first two times I made it. And you can't do con-con with it.

I think I'm sticking with the jasmine. Our maid had us laughing last trip. She cooks for us, herself, the caretaker and whoever else is on the property at the time. She came and whispered to me "This rice is not for poor people, if they eat it they will get mareo." She was joking of course, but she often scolded me for "feeding too many people".
 

AlterEgo

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I have been thinking of a rice cooker but was told that it wont burn the rice at the bottom. I hate burn't rice, they love it. Even the dog won't eat burn't rice

A rice cooker will not burn the bottom or make con-con. I know some Dominicans who make the rice on the stove, and then put it into the rice cooker to keep it warm. Whatever floats your boat.
 

jinty05

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Feb 11, 2005
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I am not a lover of the rice served in the DR but as a well travelled European I do like arborio rice......basmati rice. I suspect that the Dominicans, as they do with almost everything, overcook their rice. Do not understand their passion for concon????
 

La Profe_1

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I have been thinking of a rice cooker but was told that it wont burn the rice at the bottom. I hate burn't rice, they love it. Even the dog won't eat burn't rice

LOL!

A long time ago, I posted a link to a Persian (Iranian) rice cooker. They like their rice burned on the bottom too, even though they don't call it con-con. Their rice cookers have settings for the exact color of the crust. Here is an example:

Amazon.com: PARS Automatic Persian Rice Cooker (6 cup): Kitchen & Dining