A little story of my sausage trauma in the Dominican Republic
On the road in the D.R. I used to stop at my favorite parada (highway snack shack). You can pick up a coke, fried chicken and plantains. Quite tasty! Open front, crooked roof, dirty bathroom, couple of plastic tables. Really friendly people, just how Dominicans are. The owner is a large pretty lady called Juana.
One day I pulled up in front, as usual. I jumped out. "Hola Juana!" Juana waved back. As I came closer, I saw some sausages strung up in front.
Long, thick, fresh, pink sausages.
Then I noticed smoke around them, but no fire. Hm. Even closer, I thought: how strange, this smoke is kind of fuzzy. Suddenly I heard a frantic buzzing sound.
Arriving right in front of the sausages, I went into shock. These sausages were surrounded by a cloud of flies! Not the small ones, but big fat shiny bluebottles, thousands and thousands of them!
I couldn't' move. I was frozen. I just stared and stared at these flies. I was horrified, disgusted, fascinated! They seemed to have a pattern of flight. Some were attacking the sausages. Some were coming out of the sausages, and some were going in.
I woodenly walked over to the buffet and prayed: please not, please not! But there they were. Long, thick, cooked pink sausages on a metal serving dish. A nice-looking man was piling about 5 of them on a plate. He turned to me and smiled. I closed my eyes, swallowed and walked past him to Juana.
"Juana, those sausages...." .
"We make them ourselves, see out there, very tasty. Why don't you try one? Por favor."
"But, but....the flies!"
"Don't worry, they are baked at 300 Degrees, everything dies! Todo muerto!"
She picked up a Styrofoam box, plopped in a sausage, and handed it to me, beaming .
"It's on me!"
Moral of the story: Never eat sausages in the D.R.!
