Eating like a local:

The Dominican Republic’s economy is based in agriculture. However, the meal is similar during the day. If you want to eat like a typical local below is the menu. 

Breakfast

For breakfast, the locals eat “Mangú” (boiled mashed plantains) with one, several or all the following toppings: salami (is like pepperoni, but wider), red onions, fried cheese and/or fried egg. Also, the locals switch the "mangú" distinct kinds of tubers like cassava, potato, Malanga, blue taro, yam, and many more with the same toppings mentioned. Sure, they also eat cereal, pancakes, fruits, and ham and cheese sandwiches, but tubers and mangú with toppings are very common. 

As a drink, they could have coffee, warm milk (no flavoring), natural juice, "avena", or “jugo de avena”. "Avena" translates to oatmeal. It's a beverage that has dry oats but is not an oatmeal, it’s liquid and it’s more like warm milk with spices. “Jugo de avena” which translates to oatmeal juice is a natural fruit juice fused with dry oats or it's just a juice of oats. I know it sounds weird but it’s good.

Lunch:

The locals at home prepare rice with a kind of grain like beans (the rice and the beans can be made in one pot like the “arroz con guandules” of Puerto Rico or it can be made in different pots, for example, white rice in one pot and the beans in the other; the rice with beans in one pot or the beans differs from the one of Puerto Rico in the way that is cooked. In Puerto Rico people mostly peel and mash the ingredients to make the sofrito, in Dominican Republic people mostly peel and throw to the pan the ingredients to make the sofrito. The topping is meat which can be mostly chicken, beef, pork and maybe fish (depending on the area were one is). The most common method of cooking the meat is boiling them in a high-pressure pot with veggies and spices. Other ways of cooking the meat are frying it, grilling it(uncommon) or in the oven (rare because many people don’t use the oven). The drink can be water, juice made from scratch or a soda of any flavor.

 

Dinner:

The food it’s like the breakfast in the sense that it's tubers with one or several the toppings mentioned. The beverage that accompanies the dish is the same as for lunchtime. 


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