The pig has been part of the christmas eve dinner in the Dominican Republic since the first centuries of colonization, when the Spanish introduced this animal during the second voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1493.
Since then, the pig became a key source of protein in the local diet due to its ability to reproduce quickly and its adaptation to the island environment.
He pig, one of the leading products of the colonization of America, comes to our island in the second voyage of Columbus and from here it expands throughout the continent.
Due to its nature and massive reproduction, in addition to its nutritional characteristics and ease of transport, it became the protein par excellence of Spanish colonization and expansion in America.
The Spanish gave breed the pigs to the indigenousand their rapid reproduction and easy maintenance allowed them to proliferate and become part of the culture.
They were also transported in herds from island to island or in the interior of Hispaniola, maintaining the availability of fresh food, which was then prepared in the barbecueor to the puja, methods traditional of the aborigines.
Its supernumerary population transformed in a few years in ranger and its value in the fields was the effort of hunting it.
From his hunt emerges the figure of the hunters and the recipes and forms “of the pig to the buccane“, arising from the smuggling of smoked meat, since this meat was highly appreciated as a supply for Caribbean ships due to its good conservation.
But it also became a source of trade for the buccaneerspersecuted by the crown for tax evasion, who were dedicated to hunt them to smoke their meat and sell to the ships that sailed the Caribbean Sea.
Authors like Tolentino Dipp or Marcio Veloz Maggiolo attribute “bucán” pork to this group, as well as the demand for the consumption of wild pigs. Let us remember that the buccane It was a grill of green logs used by the Indians Caribbeans.
Christmas tradition
However, it was throughout the 19th century and especially in the 20th century when the tradition of roast pork at christmas began to become more firmly established as a popular custom at Christmas Eve dinner.
Although pork consumption was common throughout the year, in Christmas the slaughter and roasting of the pig acquired a special meaningsymbolizing the family celebration and feast of the season.
On the other hand, Julio Vega Batlleauthor of the renowned novel “Anadel”, published in 1976, refers to the already established Christmas tradition of the pig when he comments: “throughout the country the Christmas It is commemorated with large meals based on roast pork…”.
Today, on any corner, any day of the year, both in the city and in the countryside, you can consume pig roast, but, just a few years ago, the pig roast was a tradition exclusive to the festivities of Christmas and roast a pig puja It was a family business.
A year’s work
He pigTraditionally, it meant piggy bank of the peasants. gain weight pig It was a year-round undertaking that was to culminate in Christmas with the sale of the obese pig.
The meat of pig It was consumed all year round, both for its flavor and its availability. From animals they arise in our kitchen the most varied recipes, which involve all their meat and viscera, without excluding their legs, ears, head and snout – which the people baptized as “plug” -.
The meat of pigas hamschops and sausages, continue to be commonly consumed, others such as cecina, light, sandullos or butifarras cibaeñas have already disappeared from traditional tables, but black pudding, patimongos and the classic paticas de pig They have become delicacies of an off-menu diet.
Until the 1930s, the importance of butter of pig was essential in the kitchen Dominican, and this fat determined the flavor of locrios and moros, fried foods and even sweets like mantecado.
He crackling
Of the pig everything is used, but its most appreciated part in Dominican folk culture is the crackling.
This frying is obtained after frying the skin of the pigan action that can be carried out with or without meat, obtaining variables in crunchiness. Its preferred accompaniments are aboriginal products: casabecassava or fried sweet potato.
In the sixties the proclamation of the “‘cueritos de pig“flooded the city and said product was obtained after melting and frying the fat of the pig.
Yes, he pig roast announces or announced the festival of the Christmas and its consumption summarizes more than five hundred years of traditionsthat meat roasted on the board in the colorful stores where the invariable smoke arises that proclaims the recent roasting process.
Pork to the puja
The preparation of “pork a la puja”, in particular, became a act of family and community unitysince it required the collaboration of several family members to carry out the wood-fire roasting process, which gave it a unique festive character.
And it is that he pig to the puja is the sum of these traditions and knowledge of our popular culture.
- They intervene, from the preparation of the puja from a guava stick, to the selection of firewood, the sacrifice and cleaning of the pigthe sour orange pan with spices for seasoning and the long process of spinning the puja on the fork so that the fire leaves its characteristic action of well-cooked meat and even toasting.
Although, in essence, the pig roasting generally uses the same process as pujacontinues to be highlighted as “pig roasted puja” to guarantee tradition and differentiate them from Chinese boxes, home and industrial ovens and other processes.
So, although the pig began to be consumed since the arrival of the colonizers, its presence in the dominican christmas table as a central dish of Christmas Eve it was mainly established throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
