Comfort Food -- Dominican Style

Living away at college, it's really easy to feel homesick and miss your mother's home cooking. Living in Peace and World Consciousness House, I have the privilege of having a full kitchen with simple household essentials such as a stove, fridge, microwave, blender, Keurig, and other miscellaneous items to make or alter food with. When the dining hall food doesn't cut it, I call my mom and ask for some homemade recipes that I grew up with such as chicken picota, buffalo chicken dip, corn beef, homemade tomato sauce etc. In knowing that I will prepare foods like this, I always keep the fridge and freezer packed with ingredients from Target, Hannafords, and Roche Brothers which are all local grocery markets around Wheaton.

The other night in coming home, my housemate prepared dinner for herself and there was some leftovers that she said I could eat. It smelled a spicy and flavorful aroma which hit me right when I walked in the door. Her response to me was that she was homesick and wanted to unwind and relax in making one of her favorite dishes from home. It was interesting because this is a prime example of how food production, preparation, and consumption greatly impact culture. My housemate is Dominican so her comfort food consisted of brown rice, beans, and a hot, curried chicken that had numerous flavors and spices that were evident in the first bite. When I think of my mother's "comfort food", I think of homemade pizza, cheeseburgers, or her homemade pasta and sauce. Culture shapes the food we enjoy as well as what we chose to eat in our daily diet. Coming from an Irish and German background, I was never exposed to a meal like this growing up because it not something my mother grew up eating so I didn't grow up eating it. However, being exposed to people from different cultures help widen our knowledge and understanding of other cultures and how they chose to prepare and eat their homemade "comfort foods".

Weirdly enough, I had never eaten anything of this sort and my housemate was taken aback by my lack of Dominican "flavor" in my life. I must say, however, I will not be hesitant to eat this dish again!