Dominican cuisine is not too picky but can completely satisfy even the most demanding diners. The Dominicans take pride in the excellent ingredients they receive from the forest and the sea. They also pride themselves on their ability to process these ingredients in such a way that consumers realize their preciousness.
Like many Spanish-influenced countries, lunch is the most important meal of the day for the Dominicans. To save time on lunch breaks, ordinary families often make braff, a type of hot pot made from different groups of ingredients. On Friday nights and Saturday mornings, they celebrate the weekend by making a sea fish braff or pork leg. The Dominicans celebrate Independence Day (October 3rd) with successive festivals in October and November. This time coincides with the spawning season of crabs. Calalou crab soup is made from calalou leaves (related to amaranth), taro leaves and crab claws. You can eat calalou crab soup with rice or bread. Or if you want something to sip with beer, try the stuffed crab. The cook mixes crab meat with spices and bread crumbs and stuffs them into cleaned crab shells to put in the oven. On the beaches of Dominica, there are always stalls selling dishes made from freshly caught fish. They sell things like grilled fish cakes (flour stuffed with salted fish, salmon and cheese), ackra (deep-fried cod, jackfruit and waxy potatoes), fish titiwi (a type of goby) in chili powder and Grilled with lemon… If you hear the sound of horns and shells, it means the fishermen are selling the fish they just caught. This is the best time to enjoy the aforementioned gifts. Dominica rum has long been appreciated by connoisseurs of the world. Yet Dominicans drink rum differently from Westerners. They soak many different herbs, flavorings, barks… in rum. The most popular wine is rum soaked in the bark of the bois bandé tree (a plant in the phyllocarpaceae family). Locals hail this wine as the “Natural Viagra” for the energizing effects of the bois bandé plant.
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