My grandmother is from the Dominican Republic, like me, who was born there. She is my grandmother on my father's side. Since I was 9 years old, I loved watching her cook, and she always taught me how she prepared food. One of my favorite dishes was arepitas. One day, my grandmother decided to prepare them and teach me how to make them.
The ingredients for making arepitas are: yuca, anise, salt, sugar, Doña Gallina or Maggi soup, eggs, and cheese. Although the anise is optional, it is the ingredient that differentiates the Dominican arepita from the Venezuelan or Colombian arepa. In Venezuela and Colombia, they also mix the yuca dough with flour or cornstarch. if I'm not mistaken.
Sometimes, my grandmother added chili and onion, but in such small pieces that you couldn't taste them when eating them. She always made arepitas during semana santa, along with the traditional habichuela con dulce. However, since I loved them so much, we made them whenever we could. Those moments, especially when we were cooking together, were always unique and special. Now that I live in New York, I hardly ever cook arepitas, but I plan to make them again whenever I crave some.
 

– CPR

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant