Food, Part I

This is the first of what I assume will be many posts about the food here.  I've been taking a lot of pictures of various meals/produce and will do my best to describe them.  Here we go...

Mangú

This is one of the quintessential Dominican dishes.  It's green plantains that are boiled and then mashed up with oil from onions that have been fried.  It can be served with a lot of different things in it and on it: salami, eggs (scrambled or fried), avocado pieces...Here, it's topped with onions and slices of cheddar cheese.  Even though it's pretty simple, it's really delicious.  The closest non-Dominican thing I can think of to compare it to it is baked potatoes, although mangú's texture is a little lighter and the taste is more, well, plantain-like.

More Plantains

This was another dinner that starred the (very common) plantain.  Here, we have ripe plantains that have been sliced in half and boiled, then mixed with fried onions.  We also have a side of fried salami (that round thing on my plate and in the bowl behind it).

And there's some avocado - also a very popular part of Dominican food.  (I eat it as a side to at least one meal a day here.)  Not only are avocados very common, they are very easy to buy.  Around lunch time, at least two or three people stroll through the buildings of my apartment complex yelling "¡Aaaaaaguacateeee!  ¡Aaaaaguacateee!" to let people know they're selling them.  If you want one, you stick your head out the door, shout back to them, and get a fresh avocado handed to you.  (My host mom usually gets hers from the supermarket or the country, but I did hear my host brother do it this way once.)

Spaghetti

This one is less traditional.  In fact, even my host mom seemed to think it was a little weird.  But one night for dinner my host dad requested rice and spaghetti, so we had both white rice and spaghetti with red sauce.  Of course, we accompanied it with the only natural sides: avocado slices and fried eggs.  I don't think I'd ever had any two of those items at the same time before now but...I guess study abroad is all about new experiences?

As a side note, the juice we had that night was amazing.  It was homemade strawberry juice, made by blending frozen strawberries together with water and a little sugar.  It was absolutely delicious - cool and refreshing and healthy(ish), and I can't imagine how I've gone so long without it in my life.  This summer, I'm thinking I'll drink only that.