La Bandera Dominicana wears three colours, red, white and blue. Since Dominicans are very creative when it comes to food, la comida, too, they babtizized the most popular plate LA BANDERA DOMINICANA. Its not strictly of fixed ingredients, but rice makes the most important part of it. Anyway, rice is dayly commodity in Dominican households. It is bought by saccos, sacs of 50 punds, usually at payday if and when that occurs. Once this provision is finished in between paydays, the good housewife buys her rize in dayly quantities. She asks for cien pesos de arroz, rize for one hundred peosos for instance. Or she hands over an empty cup to fill it up and thus getting charged for the volume she got, say half a litre. Since the housewife might not have money on her til payday arrives, she will get it fiao, on credit. thats the usual way doing shopping, only replaced now gradually by new Supermarket chains who introduce modern times when it comes to shopping, too. This is a pity, because thus one more tradition disappears more and more in the barrios or villages, the social gatherings at the colmados, where housewifes exchange daily rumors and news of the day.

Where have we been, oh yes, the Dominican menu, La Bandera Dominicana. Since it consists of three colours, we need two more. What about habichuelas, black,  white or red beans cooked for a long twith a somptuous salsa. And then it depends on the budget. Pollo – chicken – or even porc, when the purse does allow it. if not, there might be platanos, fried plantains which appear and taste similar to french fries. Another variety might be typical dominican vegetables, for instance patatas, sweet potatoes or other viberes as similar root vegetables are called which have a long tradition on the island. and got a high nutrition value. But as mentioned, rice is the premium food on the island, in the Caribbean in general. I  was joking, saying that a dominican who didnt get at least once a day his rice portion would suffer of addiction symtpoms…… Problem for the dominican economy is, that, due to the fast-growing population, more and more rice has to be imported. And imports are costly for the economy, transportation, the customs, hard currenccy, means US Dollars etc.