Two Flavors of Racism Result in a Flavor Sensation

Last night, I hit a supermarket and a produce store before work. I needed to pick up milk for my workplace coffee habit anyway, so I handled my regular weekly shopping duties as well. The store shelves are pretty well denuded, though mirabile dictu, I WAS able to pick up a package of frozen spinach on a top shelf of an otherwise empty freezer. Meat selections were pretty slim, but I was able to grab (heh) a Dominican cooked salami. I have a familiarity with this product... in my years of working in the South Bronx, I was introduced by coworkers to that most Dominican of breakfasts, mangú con tres golpes, mashed plantains with three 'punches', those being fried eggs, fried cheese, and fried slices of salami. I had never purchased an entire Dominican salami, though, so I decided to do some research into different uses, and I fell down a rabbit hole.

Dominican salami has an... uhhhhh... interesting history, and its mere existence is due to two disparate types of racism. In the Bad Old Days of the mid 20th century, Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo agreed to grant asylum to thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing the expanding Nazi regime. Trujillo's reason for desiring an influx of Jewish refugees was, to say the least, messed up- in the wake of a massacre of Haitians living in the Dominican border region, Trujillo wanted an influx of white immigrants in an effort to 'lighten' the Dominican populace through intermarriage. The racist Trujillo was eager to welcome the European Jews fleeing the racist Hitler... great, just great.

About a thousand Jewish refugees emigrated to the DR, settling in the north of the country. They established farms and food processing businesses, including a meat processing conglomerate that produced European style cooked salami (having faced starvation, many of the immigrants didn't keep kosher). The cooked salami product, inexpensive and having a long shelf life, gained national popularity. It's not, though, the sort of salami that Katz' would send to your boy in the army:





As far as the salami itself is concerned, it's a far cry from the hard, dry salami of my Genovese ancestors... you could cut it with a fine string. It's spicy, but without heat, with a soft texture, almost like that of a pâté. It can be eaten out of hand, but does benefit from a crisping in a frying pan. I also imagine it would be good in a lentil stew, as a substitute for cotechino. It's a tasty product, but its raison d'être is enough to leave a bad taste in one's mouth.