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THE SAVORY FOODS OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC by Habeeb Salloum

THE SAVORY FOODS OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

by Habeeb Salloum

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      From a poolside restaurant at Casa Colonial Beach Resort & Spa, a luxury abode on Playa Dorada, Puerto Plata’s top resort, I gazed over the inviting sands of the beach while we enjoyed our crab dish, cooked in a gourmet Dominican Republic style.  I was purring in contentment relishing this fine sample of that country’s traditional cuisine encompassed in an aura of luxury.

      Like most of the Spanish-speaking Central American and Caribbean countries the cuisine of the Dominican Republic is a mixture of the European and Middle Eastern foods, as well to some extent that of the Western Hemisphere's Indigenous peoples.  In the majority of dishes, the Spanish element predominates, giving the Dominican food its overtone.  Since the indigenous population, early in the Spanish occupation, were either killed off or died from European introduced diseases, its contributions have been minimal.

      The Spanish introduced into the New World bananas, carrots, coconuts, coriander, figs, garlic, ginger, grapes, lemons, lime, olives, oranges, plantains, pomegranates, pork, rice, sugar, tamarind, and numerous other foods - a good number brought to Spain by the Arabs - and these have become the true basis of the Dominican kitchen. 

      From the gentle Tanio Indians of Hispaniola, which today includes both the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the country's foods only inherited allspice and cassava.  On the other hand, from the other Indians in the Americas, the island's cuisine was enriched by avocados, beans, callaloo, corn, guavas, hot and sweet peppers, papayas, pineapples, squash and pumpkin, tomatoes and various types of potatoes. 

      Through the years, from all these foods, a tasty and varied Dominican kitchen was developed, overwhelmingly influenced by the Spaniards.  The heavy utilization of coriander, garlic and olives has given the island's cooking an Iberian Peninsula flavour.  The use of dried fruit with meat in cooking - a Moorish legacy in Spain - is popular throughout the country.  Such well-known Spanish foods like  cocidos (stews),  huevos flamenco and all types of seafood are today as Dominican as the merengue - the lively dance which impregnates every home in the country.

      The Dominicans, who call their country ‘the breadbasket of the Caribbean’, because it grows almost all the known fruit and vegetables, love their foods prepared fresh.  They are enamoured with starchy foods such as beans, cassava, plantains, rice and sweet potatoes, and these serve as the basis for many of their dishes.  In the daily fare, usually served peppery hot, allspice, garlic, hot peppers, oregano and fresh coriander leaves are the most used herbs and spices.

      If visitors are brave they can try the Dominican popular street food: boiled green bananas, fried blood sausages, fried beef, fried lungs and fried yucca offered by street vendors.  They are tasty and very reasonably priced.

      The mid day meal is the big event in the lives of the Dominicans.  While diners feast on their savoury dishes, cervaza (beer) and rum flow freely.  In the background, the passionate merengue is always to be heard.  The Dominicans love to dance and sing and, hence, enjoy music with their food.  This does not even stop when dessert - often made from bananas and coconuts - is being relished.  As the black coffee, to end the meal, is being sipped, the young are often dancing in an empty space - their way to cap a tasty Dominican meal.

Puerto Plata-Street Food

    Sample the Dominican kitchen by trying these easy to prepare dishes made from ingredients easily found in North American markets.

 

THE FOOD OF TAMPICO: A TASTE OF NORTHERN MEXICO by Habeeb Salloum

THE FOOD OF TAMPICO: A TASTE OF NORTHERN MEXICO

by Habeeb Salloum

    For a while we gloried in the 21st century luxuries of Club Maeva Miramar, Tampico’s seaside resort.  Our food matched the lavishness of our abode, but we knew that it was not the real cuisine of Mexico.  When Mexican dishes were on the menu they were altered to comply with most of tourists’ tastes.  For the authentic food of Mexico’s northeastern Caribbean coast we had to dine in the restaurants downtown - in the heart of the city.  Of course, the decor in many cases, could not match that of Club Maeva Miramar’s Doña Juana Cata Restaurant, but the dishes were the true cuisine of the city.       

    Situated on the northern shores of the Pánuco River on the Gulf of Mexico, 400 km (248 mi) south of the American border, the present Tampico, is surrounded by a complex river and lagoon system, mingling together to give the town a unique setting.  Together with the sister cities of Altamira and Madero, forming a metropolitan zone in the State of Tamaulipas, it is a traditional Mexican urban centre, replete with history and a locally developed cuisine.  The city is noted not only for its cuisine but also for its petrochemical industry, and for its historical downtown, full of architectural elegance, lively markets, fine parks and historic structures that date back to the beginning of the 1900s - the golden era of the city.       

    An important trade centre and the second most important port on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, it was once the original ‘Mexican Riviera’ - the choice resort area of royalty and the rich.  Here they came to spend their winters, long before the concept of tourism was invented.  However, by 1960, Tampico was all but forgotten as a desirable destination.  Oil tankers from the nearby port facility fouled the once-gorgeous beaches and tourism almost died out.       

    Today, Tampico's tourist fortunes are beginning to return, thanks to a newfound awareness in environmental protection, and a change in government priorities.  This has given the city a new lease on life and has retrieved some of its tourist allurement from the past.  Still unspoiled by mass modern tourism, Tampico, a city of some 307,000, remains the place where a traveller is able to see, feel and experience the real Mexico and its local kitchen.

MAPLE SYRUP - QUÉBEC'S LIQUID GOLD by Habeeb Salloum

       MAPLE SYRUP - QUÉBEC'S LIQUID GOLD
                         by Habeeb Salloum
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photo copyrighted by Montérégie

    The first time that I stepped in the midst of a sugar maple forest with sap dripping into  buckets, attached to almost every tree, I felt an air of excitement.  A few minutes later as I entered a sugar shack, listening to a syrup-maker relating the story of maple syrup, I became intoxicated with the enticing odour coming from the steaming vats.  All the time we stood by the smiling syrup-maker, he kept an eye on the boiling sap - called by some of its fans 'liquid gold'.  As happens to the gold ore in its raw stage, the maple sap was before us being refined into a valuable commodity.       
    The Québec cold and harsh winters, followed by warm and sunny spring thaws give that Canadian province an advantage when it comes to the production of maple syrup.  The ideal weather conditions produce the sweetest and most flavourful maple syrup not only in Canada, but around the world.  This, combined with the thousands of acres of natural maple forests, makes Québec the number one place on the globe when it comes to the production of maple syrup - more than  90% of Canada's maple syrup production and 70% of the worlds' supply.       
    The making of this natural sweet was inherited by the early settlers from the aboriginals who lived in Québec, southern Ontario, and the northeastern region of the U.S.A.  In all these areas of North America, the top of the six species of sugar maple trees, Acer saccharum (the true maple sugar tree), is found.       
    The Sugar Maple, also called Rock Maple, can grow up to 23 to 30 m (75 to100 ft) tall, with trunk diameters of 0.9 to 1.2 m (3 to 4 ft).  Its leaves are 7.5 to 13 cm (3 to 5 in) across and usually have five lobes, separated by rounded, shallow indentations.  The margins of the leaves are indented with sparse, large, pointed teeth.  Canadians esteem the leaves of this tree important so much that they are inscribed on the country's national flag.  A very useful tree, its sap, taken from the trunk, is used to make maple syrup and its wood is used in the manufacture of furniture.       
    After the French began to settle in what is now the Province of Québec, the Indigenous Peoples taught them the art of producing maple syrup.  In the ensuing years, harvesting this sweet sap evolved into becoming a basic part of the settlers' lives.  Before the 19th century, the major source of high quality pure sugar consumed in Québec was produced from this Aboriginal gift to the incoming Europeans.       
    For Québecers, from February to mid-April, when the sap flows, it's a looked-forward-to time to enjoy this gift of nature.  For hundreds of years the Indigenous Peoples employed clay pots to boil the sap over  a blaze, topped only by a roof of tree branches.  For the settlers, over the years, this simple fireplace evolved into the sugar shacks, where, besides boiling the sap, they became gathering places to socialize and enjoy a traditional meal.       
    Even though all over North America and other parts of the world, maple syrup is known as a breakfast delight, the Indigenous Peoples used it to enhance wild game and, later, the French settlers added it to all kinds of dishes.  Today, when the sap runs, family and friends gather at the sugar hut, where tables overflow with the traditional maple syrup foods.  After gorging on these gourmet delights such as maple-baked beans, maple omelettes and maple desserts, family and friends stream outside for the usual hot maple taffy, served on a bed of fresh snow.  For the true Québecois, a visit to the sugar shack in spring has become a type of pilgrimage.    

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BESIDES TACOS AND FAJITAS, MEXICO HAS ALSO A VEGETARIAN CUISINE BY HABEEB SALLOUM

BESIDES TACOS AND FAJITAS, MEXICO HAS ALSO A VEGETARIAN CUISINE
                                             by Habeeb Salloum
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    From the border of Mexico to the Arctic Circle 'Let's go and have a fajita' is now almost as common among the teenage crowd as 'let's go for a hamburger' .  The words of a traveller who wrote, "Mexican food excites the passion, seduces the body, then sends one into ecstasy" are now becoming a reality in North America. 
    Mexican dishes, complex, delicious and rich, still rest firmly on their Aztec and Maya origins - once one of the most varied and exotic cuisines on the globe. The cooking of that country, one of the oldest in the world whose history goes back some 5000 years, is spreading like wild fire from the northern borders of Mexico to the Arctic Circle. Besides fajitas, empanades, enchiladas, tacos, tamales, toastadas and tortillas, are now to be found throughout the Americas.
    It is said that Montezuma, the last Aztec ruler, selected his daily meals from some 300 exotically prepared foods and, no doubt, from among these were a good number of vegetarian dishes.  In fact, the central core of the indigenous kitchen included, besides chillies and tomatoes, corn, beans and squash - called by some food writers `the holy threesome'.  Even though, in our times, most Mexican foods are served with meat, there are numerous delightful vegetable dishes in that country, with roots that go back to pre-Columbian times.  Some still carry their Indian names like mole, a series of well-known sauces , deriving their name from the Aztec molli.

MANSAF: THE PRIDE OF JORDANIAN CUISINE by Habeeb Salloum

    The first time I sat down to a feast featuring mansaf was in the countryside near Amman, the capital of Jordan.  Surrounded by distinguished-looking men in flowing Arab robes, I reclined quietly beside my host around a steaming platter of rice covered with lamb and nuts. The conversation was almost zilch as we gorged ourselves on tender and succulent meat served over steaming rice, made even tastier by the yogurt and spices.
    Being an honoured guest, my host picked out for me the choicest pieces of meat as he urged me on.  In the best tradition of Arab hospitality he made sure that I was overfed.  Of course, I did not need much encouragement.  Every mouthful of the appetizing food made me crave for more.  It was a feast that I have always remembered.
    In Jordan mansaf, the pride of Jordanian cuisine and the national dish of the country is usually prepared for and served to esteemed guests primarily on special occasions such as weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries.  The dish possesses an important symbolic function within social gatherings, it being offered as the ultimate to the honoured guest.  The daily family food of the people is often not as sumptuous but healthier - much of it relating to earlier times when most of the inhabitants of today's Jordan were poor Bedouins, peppered with a few peasants.
    Mansaf stands as the ultimate of Jordanian cuisine - a part of Arab gastronomy, which is one of the world's most sophisticated and elaborate cuisines.  Jordanian food, although having some unique attributes, is part of this Middle Eastern distinctive culinary heritage, but stemming more from traditional Bedouin cooking.
     A mansaf feast is taken seriously, and hours are spent in its preparations.  A dish of lamb seasoned with herbs and spices, it is served on a large platter on a bed of rice in a tangy yogurt sauce and sprinkled with almonds and pine nuts.  Traditionally, the yogurt used is jameed, a type of salted dried goat milk.
    The main course of a mansaf meal usually begins with several varieties of mazza, or hors d'oeuvres and with several salads as side dishes.   Bread, usually khoubz sh'rak, a large thin, round unleavened bread, accompanies every meal and a dessert or fresh fruit ends a meal.  Lastly, comes the famous Arabic coffee without which no meal is complete. 

 

The Foods of Aleppo- The Haute Cuisine of Syria

THE FOODS OF ALEPPO - THE HAUTE CUISINE OF SYRIA by Habeeb Salloum

    We had arrived in Aleppo, Syria’s gourmet capital, that afternoon and had settled down in Chahba Cham Palace Hotel, the city’s top class abode.  However, we did not rest much.  I along with my daughter, were excited and we could hardly wait for the evening when we were to dine in one of the hotel’s fine restaurants.  A friend of mine in Damascus, Syria’s capital and the oldest inhabited city on earth had insisted that if we were to truly know the joys of Syrian cuisine, we had to try a buffet of Arab foods held on the weekend at Aleppo’s Chahba Cham Palace Hotel.