maybe, guillermone, the carbon grilled foods in the DR do taste better than the food done in the states. charcoal fires add a flavor to meats and vegetables that cannot be duplicated on gas. but i do not think that the zoning laws allow for too many restaurants building grandiose bonfires in their kitchens. so, just like jamaican jerk in new york tastes like horse manure compared to the local stuff on the island, i guess you are right. then again, even charcoal grilled stuff from the islands is way behind some of the stuff from the south of america..i mean places like alabama and georgia, etc. in the caribbean, when some guy cuts open a 55 gallon drum and puts a grate in it, we call it a barbecue grill. in alabams and tennessee, they call it scrap metal. you have to see some of the contraptions they build, with side boxes and all kinds of piping and tubing. makes us look like amateurs, which we really are. when they barbecue a chicken, it is a masterpiece. when we do the same, it is a bird cooked over a wood fire. we have a lot to learn

It definitely has to do with the fact that Cubans are a power in the USA. Dominican food is probably the richest of the three hispanic Caribbean cuisines (Puerto Rico, Dominican Rep. and Cuba)

Dominican food is so rich that it even has many subregional very rich cuisines.

I have been researching Dominican food for long. I have been sharing my research and findings in my Dominican Traditional food blog.

http://elfogoncito.net

Hmm....then i shall check your blog out! thanks!

Ahhhhhh....Another anti-Cuban Bigot has arrived.

Face it. If there is one word that can describe Dominican food compared to others of the Caribbean region it would be....."BLAND"

Interesting. Do you always call whoever gives a different perspective from your own a bigot?

It would be interesting to be able to talk about a subject without insults or disqualifications. Debate is something to be done between civilized people.

Call them as I see them.

Very nice site and very interesting stuff. My wife is loving it!. Keep up the great work. I apreciate to see Dominicans rising the bar and showing the other face of the country. We in DR have a very wide variety of foods but often only the few famous one end up on the dining table.

Just a suggestion for the site. Why not do video tutorials on how to cook those recipes. It would definitely help people like me who want to learn cooking. Your site became a instant favorite at home now.

Wow! Thanks for your kind words.

It is true. Dominican cuisine is so rich It keeps surprising me every day. I have hundreds of recipes posted already and still find new very common recipes that I seemed to have forgotten!

The site is available in both English and Spanish and yes! we do have a youtube channel. The address is:

http://www.youtube.com/user/fogoncitochannel

Kind regards!
Arturo

Ha ha ha! Ok. I see. Have a good day.

You should keep in mind that Cubans, Dominicans and Puertoricans are, before everything else, bothers. We're the same race under three Countries. We're the same nation. Wether we admit it or not is a whole different thing.

History is there. Maximo Gomez, Luis Muñoz Marin, Juan Bosch, Jose Marti, etc.

Have a good day brother!

My two cents worth.

Why doesn't Dominican food get the same recognition as Cuban Food in the U.S.?

1. Cubans have a far richer and more established relationship with the USA.

2. Cubans have been better business people in general with a greater sense of entrepreneurship than Dominicans.


We should all keep in mind than the USA has had a very long relationship with the island of Cuba. The islands of the Caribbean, and especially the largest of them Cuba, have always been considered essential pieces in USA geo-strategic thinking. The USA sought to buy the island from Spain many times before the Maine mysteriously burned in Havana Harbor, instigating the Spanish American War of 1898. And with it, the US formal imperial takeover from Spain of the last pieces of the latter's enormous imperial territories in the Americas, and her most valued piece of Asian territories, the Philippines.

Thus, many Americans have forged deep and sometimes family ties with Cubans that was never the case with say the people of the Dominican Republic. Millions of US dollars were invested in Cuba. Many times more than the monies invested in DR by US citizens. The US was geographically closer to Cuba and this was very important in establishing closer ties between the two people. And where people meet they also forge culinary relationships. So it's little wonder that Americans soon developed a taste for the exotic Caribbean culinary fares from their Cuban hosts or when some Cubans established small colonies in the State of Florida, think Tampa. And the long ties extended even further into history.

"Prior to the Louisiana Purchase and the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, all of Florida and Louisiana were provinces of the Captaincy General of Cuba (Captain General being the Spanish title equivalent to the British colonial Governor). Consequently, Cuban immigration to the U.S. has a long history, beginning in the Spanish colonial period in 1565 when St. Augustine, Florida was established by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, and hundreds of Spanish-Cuban soldiers and their families moved from Cuba to St. Augustine to establish a new life. Thousands of Cuban settlers also immigrated to Louisiana between 1778 and 1802 and Texas during the period of Spanish rule." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_American

The far more modern and developed island of Cuba possessed far greater entrepreneurial talents than those of the DR before the 1959 Revolution in Cuba. When that massive upheaval turned leftist and many Cubans left the island their preference was towards the States of Florida and the New York metropolitan region. These groups were largely well educated and from the middle to higher classes of Pre-revolutionary Cuba. And given their skill-set and facilitated by US help in establishing themselves in the States, worked hard and diligently to achieve far better economic outcomes in general than many Dominican immigrants. Of course, the class differences are important as many Dominicans from the middle to upper classes did not have to abandon their own nation. Some Dominicans did during the Trujillo Era and political upheaval of the 1960s in DR going to Puerto Rico, Venezuela and even the US, but in far smaller numbers than those that left Cuba after the 1959 Revolution.

Lastly, the Cubans were able to establish a far greater presence in the written and video media than their counterparts from the Dominican Republic. This was crucial in establishing their culinary taste across the USA. Restaurants were and are some of the most important small businesses established by immigrant communities and Cubans established many of them throughout Florida and the NY metropolitan region. Quickly, many Americans developed the notion that Caribbean Spanish cuisine was Cuban as they had scant knowledge of the many culinary fares found in the Caribbean Basin. And thus we have my take to your question: Why doesn't Dominican food get the same recognition as Cuban Food in the U.S.?

But it's slowly changing