Olores, sabores e historia: Flavors of the Dominican Republic
By Lidia Philippe | September 14th 2025
While I was walking along my usual route and my thoughts were going everywhere as always, something brought me back not to the present, like it usually happens, but this time to a beautiful past that we sometimes forget because of the rush of daily life.
It wasn’t an image, it wasn’t a song… this time it was a smell. A smell that reminded me of the backyard of my house full of fruit trees. That smell was from a bollo de maíz with salami, but not just any bollo, it was one cooked over firewood, because in the East, where I come from, that is very typical.
There, it is very common to enjoy dishes like bollo de maíz with bacalao, moro de guandules with fish, dumplings with bacalao, and even the local version of the “continental breakfast”: a yaniqueque with salami and to refresh the palette, we have different types of mabí.
Let me give you an idea of what each dish is about, without revealing of course my family’s secret recipes, because if you want to know the real flavor, the best thing is to take a little trip to my land:
Sancocho: Although the correct name is Salcocho, in the countryside that detail still hasn’t arrived. It is a kind of soup made with seven meats and different root vegetables. My mother says you must be careful with the salt, because it has to be just right.
Bollo de maíz: It sounds simple, since it is just corn flour, salt, and water, but my grandmother says the proportions and the love make the difference.
Moro de guandules: It is green pigeon peas mixed with rice and natural seasonings. My cousin says that the amount of water guarantees the perfect texture of the rice.
Dumplings: Just flour, salt, and butter, but my uncle says that for them to be soft, we must be patient when kneading.
Yaniqueques: Flour, salt, butter, and a little baking powder. My sister says the trick is in the baking powder.
Mabí: A refreshing drink usually made from bohuco indio. It is left to age, which makes it foamy, and my brother-in-law says it can even get you tipsy.
The rest of these things you can find in other parts of the country, although we received many of these dishes as inheritance, since our ancestors were Cocolos (immigrants who came mainly from the British Caribbean islands places like Saint Kitts, Nevis, Antigua, Saint Vincent, Anguilla, Montserrat, Dominica, and the Virgin Islands to the Dominican Republic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), and they made sure we never forgot delicious food that, while it brings me back to my childhood, surely reminded them of the land they once left behind.
Forgive me for not giving you the quantities, but that is exactly the secret my family cannot share, since I prefer to leave you with the curiosity and the desire to come and discover the East of my beautiful country, the Dominican Republic.
