A Dominican food fight.

[dv8]

i don't really have this issue since i'm the one who has to cook and miesposo is the one who has to eat it. in almost 11 years here i corrupted him completely and he eats everything i make, con gusto. it may be things like white sauce pizza with ricotta and grilled white eggplant or chicken butter curry or georgian dumplings stuffed with beef and broth or serbian burek or gnocchi alla romana from semolina flour or beef bourguignon. often we talk whether his family would eat my savoury it and more often than not the conclusion is negative.

on the other hand they are mad about most of my baking. dominicans don't have a hand for pastries and sweet breads. i make brioches and croissants and they are very well received but the family goes completely nuts for any cakes and breads with white cheese, which is not frequently used here. on few occasions my MIL and SIL would try to rip a box with cake from each other hands arguing who takes it home which resulted in my MIL hiding the stuff in a car so that no one else can even see it and take it away

i have mixed feelings about dominican attitude towards food. we have a fren in SD who's family are complete health freaks to the point of outhipstering dedicated organic whole foods shopper in murica: kombucha, karob, nutritional yeast and that kind of jazz. about 75% of their groceries are imported from the states. crazy. another fren in santiago is currently dating a chef and they are both open to international cuisine and they enjoy my cooking.

but then there's my SIL's bff: very rich, travels to the states and europe regularly yet would only eat rice/beans/chicken. her father also never ever touches veggies to the point of dissecting any suspicious dish to remove any vegetable that might have been added to it. these are folks who could literally bring a chef from france to cook for them daily but they prefer dominican campesina to prep their food.

so to each their own, really. i'm glad i don't have to sweat the small stuff with miesposo and argue about daily routine. it would be draining for me to get upset about basics like food.

 

[Mauricio]

That's what I'm trying to avoid Mauricio. I don't wish for her to believe that I think her cooking doesn't​ make me happy. How did you get past this?

When she asks: what do you want for lunch I say : I don't know (since I really don't want rice +X) which she answers that I make it difficult for her. I tell her that I don't really care. I don't like rice and beans but I'm eating it regularly for 7 years now, and with the perspective of going back to Europe hopefully somewhere between now and next year summer I can survive. 

Since our smallest child is a little older now she would be cooking more often herself and she can make an outstanding meal, often tries recipes, to please me she'd make a Dutch meal, even tough she doesn't like the spiceless (read: delicious) Dutch food. However since these months she has to fill in as principal for the family owned school we're back to square one. 

My daily menu is:

Breakfast: pan de agua with peanut butter and a coffee.

During the morning some more coffee and some more coffee, depending on how many customers I visit.

Lunch: a small amount (like a fist) of rice with beans. With avocado if they're not too ripe to remove the taste of the beans and a lot of salad. If the lady makes chicken she makes a chicken breast apart for me wth only salt and pepper, no ajo, orégano , lemon (I don't want chicken that tastes to dishwasher soap). 

Dinner: yautia is not that bad with eggs , if the menu is platanos I eat either another pan de agua or I get some healthy Taco Bell taco which is conveniently a few blocks away. Sometimes I settle for prosciutto with casabe and goat cheese. 

I do miss bread from 'de echte warme bakker' (the real warm / fresh bakery)

 

[ROLLOUT]

We're on St. Martin a lot, and the French side has some wonderful restaurants. Pickled turkey gizzards, savory crepes, and even Foie Gras. She also likes duck as well, but of course these things are not usually cooked at home. On Providentiales where we met, I took her to Mango Reef for our first dinner date out. I ordered an appetizer of crab,scallops,shrimp,and lobster in a cream mushroom sauce wrapped in filo dough and baked. It's absolutely fabulous, but she wouldn't even try it. She asked for the pork chop which was a stuffed pork chop done up very nice, and wouldn't eat it either. She did like the wine and bread with butter. It was the most interesting dinner date I had ever been on. After this, when we went out to eat, I would talk to the waiter/waitress and tell them I have to order for her first to make sure she would eat it and then I would order for myself. I had about a 50/50 shot at her eating what we ordered. Now we are able to order dinner together, so we are definitely making and have made some good headway. I'm telling ya. Dominicanas are funny when it comes to food. And what's up with Dominicans and green vegetables??

Green veggies and Dominicans?? Pig gonna fly first. Gf is ALWAYS sick with a cold, or some such. I tell her that her immune system is caca because you don't eat a balanced diet. Green veggies are the key I say. So, I get a photo of a dish with green peppers and lettuce.
I have given up trying to introduce her to different types of cuisines. "No mi gusta" are the first words out of her mouth, I ask "have you ever tries it?" "no". Then how can you be so stupid to conclude that you don't like something without ever having tried it.
If I do steaks on the parilla, I have to put hers on first, so they can turn to cardboard before I make my med rare. Its the sangre thing.
And please, don't get me started on the spoon thing.

 

[Wishing you well]

Jajaja even in an AI while in the DR food it's just food. Mangu, Salami, Yuca

 

[dv8]

When she asks: what do you want for lunch I say : I don't know (since I really don't want rice +X) which she answers that I make it difficult for her.

you contribute to your own misery. say you want potatoes or couscous. give her some directions, something she can work on.

speaking of dutch food... our sunday tradition is sweet breakfast. today, for example, i made french toasts from homemade banana and poppy seed bread, filled with mascarpone and blackcurrants and with dulce de leche and chocolate. tasty. but few weeks ago i discovered poffertjes and boy, are they delish. i had to get up earlier to start the dough but it was well worth the effort.

 

[2dlight]

Got a few good laughs reading this thread. I'm surprised no one has noticed that typical Dominican sancocho doesn't call for dumplings, or whatever it was the OP's dear wife put in it that resembled that culinary delight. While married to my Puerto Rican exwife for 40 years, we travelled extensively and tried to eat as many different dishes as we could. At home I did all the cooking; from recipes,memory, cooking shows and just making things up as I went. I like spicy(hot)food so I use habanero, ghost, cayenne, Serrano and jalapeño peppers in many of my dishes. My two year relationship with a Vegan gave me an appreciation for eating raw, unprocessed foods and all kinds of nuts, grains and fruit. And, I can still make a mean sancocho from scratch with chickens I grow(raise)myself??????I will be in the DR for the month of June to look for a place to settle down; hope to meet some of you DR1'rs!

 

[jstarebel]

Green veggies and Dominicans?? Pig gonna fly first. Gf is ALWAYS sick with a cold, or some such. I tell her that her immune system is caca because you don't eat a balanced diet. Green veggies are the key I say. So, I get a photo of a dish with green peppers and lettuce.
I have given up trying to introduce her to different types of cuisines. "No mi gusta" are the first words out of her mouth, I ask "have you ever tries it?" "no". Then how can you be so stupid to conclude that you don't like something without ever having tried it.
If I do steaks on the parilla, I have to put hers on first, so they can turn to cardboard before I make my med rare. Its the sangre thing.
And please, don't get me started on the spoon thing.

Ding Ding... That's exactly it.. too funny

 

[Commander Ooh La La USN]

No. I don't give her recipes. She also isn't real big into fayboo or cartoons. Don't get me wrong, years went by without any issues. Well, except Rabito.. (pig tails in brine) I ain't eating that, but everything else was and is great. It's just her lack of wanting to try something else. She's fine with what her diet is now, and I'm not. That's where the food fight comes in. And Bill's right that I am making headway including scalloped potatoes, green beans with bacon and onions instead of Yucca with cheese and onions, but I can't hardly eat the carne anymore. I've even went through the Louisiana hot sauce on everything routine but that stopped working too. I'm not really looking for advice. I was just interested if I was the only one having this issue or if others were too.

Try better hot sauce. Hahahahaha.

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[jstarebel]

When she asks: what do you want for lunch I say : I don't know (since I really don't want rice +X) which she answers that I make it difficult for her. I tell her that I don't really care. I don't like rice and beans but I'm eating it regularly for 7 years now, and with the perspective of going back to Europe hopefully somewhere between now and next year summer I can survive. 

Since our smallest child is a little older now she would be cooking more often herself and she can make an outstanding meal, often tries recipes, to please me she'd make a Dutch meal, even tough she doesn't like the spiceless (read: delicious) Dutch food. However since these months she has to fill in as principal for the family owned school we're back to square one. 

My daily menu is:

Breakfast: pan de agua with peanut butter and a coffee.

During the morning some more coffee and some more coffee, depending on how many customers I visit.

Lunch: a small amount (like a fist) of rice with beans. With avocado if they're not too ripe to remove the taste of the beans and a lot of salad. If the lady makes chicken she makes a chicken breast apart for me wth only salt and pepper, no ajo, orégano , lemon (I don't want chicken that tastes to dishwasher soap). 

Dinner: yautia is not that bad with eggs , if the menu is platanos I eat either another pan de agua or I get some healthy Taco Bell taco which is conveniently a few blocks away. Sometimes I settle for prosciutto with casabe and goat cheese. 

I do miss bread from 'de echte warme bakker' (the real warm / fresh bakery)

Yep..I like yautia and eggs. Gaby of course eats fried salami with it but I'm not eating that either. It's icky. You have no idea how long it's been since I had a taco Bell. I love and cook Mexican, but Taco Bell never really made it I to the Caribbean as a whole. You're lucky. The only fast food I've found that she likes is the Burger King chicken sandwich. She will go for KFC crispy too. I drink two cups of cafe con leche in the morning and head to work. I eat around 11:30 or so and my choices here suck. I have a choice of West Indian cuisine or Dominican. That's it , and it's fairly.close except west indians use sauce on their BBQ. Other than that it's peas.and rice and carne. Fried whole fish and sometimes we get lucky and get a yellow fin tuna. On weekends, the conch shack is tasty. I just found it funny what we can get use to in our lives ya know.

 

[jstarebel]

Try better hot sauce. Hahahahaha.

Sent from my Z833 using Tapatalk

I like my Louisiana hot sauce. Crystal is good too. I know there are a lot of hot sauces in the Caribbean, but I find most ust hot with no flavor. So I pour on the Louisiana. Good stuff.. Recommendations??

 

[Commander Ooh La La USN]

I like my Louisiana hot sauce. Crystal is good too. I know there are a lot of hot sauces in the Caribbean, but I find most ust hot with no flavor. So I pour on the Louisiana. Good stuff.. Recommendations??

Grace Red Pepper Sauce, Scotch Bonnet Sauce.

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[jstarebel]

i don't really have this issue since i'm the one who has to cook and miesposo is the one who has to eat it. in almost 11 years here i corrupted him completely and he eats everything i make, con gusto. it may be things like white sauce pizza with ricotta and grilled white eggplant or chicken butter curry or georgian dumplings stuffed with beef and broth or serbian burek or gnocchi alla romana from semolina flour or beef bourguignon. often we talk whether his family would eat my savoury it and more often than not the conclusion is negative.

on the other hand they are mad about most of my baking. dominicans don't have a hand for pastries and sweet breads. i make brioches and croissants and they are very well received but the family goes completely nuts for any cakes and breads with white cheese, which is not frequently used here. on few occasions my MIL and SIL would try to rip a box with cake from each other hands arguing who takes it home which resulted in my MIL hiding the stuff in a car so that no one else can even see it and take it away

i have mixed feelings about dominican attitude towards food. we have a fren in SD who's family are complete health freaks to the point of outhipstering dedicated organic whole foods shopper in murica: kombucha, karob, nutritional yeast and that kind of jazz. about 75% of their groceries are imported from the states. crazy. another fren in santiago is currently dating a chef and they are both open to international cuisine and they enjoy my cooking.

but then there's my SIL's bff: very rich, travels to the states and europe regularly yet would only eat rice/beans/chicken. her father also never ever touches veggies to the point of dissecting any suspicious dish to remove any vegetable that might have been added to it. these are folks who could literally bring a chef from france to cook for them daily but they prefer dominican campesina to prep their food.

so to each their own, really. i'm glad i don't have to sweat the small stuff with miesposo and argue about daily routine. it would be draining for me to get upset about basics like food.

Hmm. I just bombed on corrupting her with food Dv8 and I tried too. Glad you pulled.it off. I was a single father before moving to the Caribbean and I try not to cook much anymore. Done my time so to speak, but I do indeed cook on occasion and if I don't want what's here when I get home, there is never an argument. You are mistaken about why I posted.this thread. I just wanted to hear what others did and wanted to know if I was the only one getting tired of Dominican cuisine.

 

[Mauricio]

you contribute to your own misery. say you want potatoes or couscous. give her some directions, something she can work on.

speaking of dutch food... our sunday tradition is sweet breakfast. today, for example, i made french toasts from homemade banana and poppy seed bread, filled with mascarpone and blackcurrants and with dulce de leche and chocolate. tasty. but few weeks ago i discovered poffertjes and boy, are they delish. i had to get up earlier to start the dough but it was well worth the effort.

Well, the one asking what I want to eat is my wife, not the maid. She actually knows what I'd rather eat, potatoes and coliflor (or red cabbage or green beans or carrots and onions or any of the vegetables I'd normally eat) with a steak and gravy on the potatoes, but what Dominican maid will make that without ruining the potatoes with garlic (no garlic seems to mean 'just a little' garlic just like no bleach while laundry means use as you wish). 

Another issue is that vegetables is always a mix of different not very well cooked vegetables. I'd prefer just one , well cooked vegetable plus 4 or 5 potatoes and the gravy of the meat. However just like the OP, it's not really something we argue about , I had lived here before we came back and knew the food was going to be an issue. 

 Where did you find poffertjes?! Next thing you'll tell me you found frikadellen...!

 

[La Profe_1]

I had a Dominican, wife of an expat, as a house guest once. She was extremely unwilling to try any new or different food. On the other hand, my maid has lunch with me when she is working and she is very adventurous. In almost two years the only thing she has disliked is a caprese salad.

Have had Dominican dinner guests who ate and enjoyed my non-Dominican food. Gorgon, that includes devouring my New York style cheesecake.

 

[Fulano2]

Where did you find poffertjes?! Next thing you'll tell me you found frikadellen...!

Believe it or not, my wife put a poffertjespan in the mudanza. Whenever you would like to use it I will hand it over to Hugo. I don't eat that stuff Anyway. The mix is just the same as pannenkoeken ...easy ..

 

[bigwhiskey]

Wow the OP thinks like I do .At times I will get some good cold cuts and settle for a good jethro sandwich and chips than eat chicken beef or pork. They used to turn up their nose when I would cook now they will run me over to get to the stove.
They still can't figure out how I slow cook my ribs on the grill, they call my sausage n chicken gumbo American salcocho or have no ideal what a coubion is how I make it but will scrape the pot. They say I eat loco because I don't feel like eating a heavy hot meal 2 hours after a late breakfast or why I will eat cheese n crackers and salami instead of rice beans n chicken. Oh well

 

[the gorgon]

I like my Louisiana hot sauce. Crystal is good too. I know there are a lot of hot sauces in the Caribbean, but I find most ust hot with no flavor. So I pour on the Louisiana. Good stuff.. Recommendations??

this is the ultimate hot sauce on earth. it is pricey, but so is Dom Perignon, compared to La Fuerza. i have had some of the best Scotch Bonnet sauces, like Walkerswood, Grace, and Matouks, but this is in its own class. makes hot sauce like Franks taste like dishwater..

https://keithlorren.com/shop/scotch-bonnet-hot-sauce

 

[the gorgon]

I had a Dominican, wife of an expat, as a house guest once. She was extremely unwilling to try any new or different food. On the other hand, my maid has lunch with me when she is working and she is very adventurous. In almost two years the only thing she has disliked is a caprese salad.

Have had Dominican dinner guests who ate and enjoyed my non-Dominican food. Gorgon, that includes devouring my New York style cheesecake.

i play dominoes with a group of guys from all walks of life. one is just a spoiled rich brat, two lawyers, a few clergymen, a doctor, and assorted idlers like myself. they are unanimous in their love for the lowly empanada, and eat any filling i can drem up in my head. mine are baked, and they will eat them by the dozen if they can get them..

 

[the gorgon]

the next best thing to Chef Lorren hot sauce

https://www.amazon.com/Matouks-Hot-Sauce-Pepper-Ounce/dp/B0002DD6JC

 

[RDKNIGHT]

Hot Sauce - Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce is the one I like.. i just cook myself ... Salami is nasty here or in the states a process S*** I did teach my maid to cook a mean Italian Gravy she loves it ... Hey eat the fish its the best