Dollars for beans, sweet and warm | The Manhattan Times

By Sandra E. García

Dollars for beans, sweet and warm

Got a dollar?

Then step right up, as just 4 quarters or a single dollar bill will buy you some of the sweetest delight you’re ever to find in a steaming Styrofoam cup, particularly as the cold of winter settles in and you’ve exhausted your hot chocolate urges.

Known as “habichuelas con dulce,” or, literally, “sweet beans,” the portable liquid delicacy is precisely that: sweet.

Reminiscent of hot cocoa but sweeter, habichuelas con dulce is a creamy, silky, sweet broth flavored with cinnamon and vanilla, and filled with dense morsels of beans and raisins. It is a classic, traditional Dominican drink/dessert/snack that can be served cold, but is more frequently doled out hot and quick, particularly along St. Nicholas Avenue near and around West 182nd Street, where street vendors have created a brisk business from shopping carts outfitted with huge Thermoses and neat rows of plastic cups and spoons.

“I’ve bought habichuelas con dulce in other places and it just doesn’t taste as good!” exclaims Ybelkis Sanchez, who traveled from New Jersey on a recent wintry afternoon to enjoy a cup then, and a two-dollar container to enjoy later.

Read more: Dollars for beans, sweet and warm | January 6, 2010.

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  • Ramona De La Cruz
    January 18, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    Back in 1988, I bought my 1st cup of the most delicious home-made “Dominican Habichuela Con Dulce” from the lady on 182nd St. & St. Nicholas Avenue. Immediately I was “hooked”. This lady raised her children off of the delicious “sweet beans”. I watched her endure the worst weather conditions and even was briefly arrested on a Good-Friday for being a street vendor without an ID at that time. (Viernes Santo is the day ALL Dominicans eat habichuelas con dulce.) However, her dedication and only mean of providing for her children lead her to keep going and not look back. She got her I.D. and has held the throne of “La Reina de las Habichuelas Con Dulce” for all these years. Today, the business has passed on to her grown daughter who stands in that same corner with a big smile. I travel from New Jersey just to get these delicious, steaming hot sweet beans. I WILL NOT buy them from anyone else.

    182nd St. holds a lot of good and bad memories for this Matriarch. For the love of her family, she did what she needed to do and it paid off. May God continue to bless those wonderful hands that cook the Habichuelas with so much love and always the right touch of ingredients and taste. It’s amazing. Many have tried copying but non can equal her.

    I know her sorrows how she worked at times with tears in her eyes but it definitely paid off. God bless the Habichuela Queen!!!

    This is from someone that has admired her dedication and love her Habichuelas.

    • Eliana De la Cruz
      January 18, 2012 at 8:58 pm

      Have you ever tried the majarete? Solo dejame decirte que tu no has probado las habichuelas mias son casi igual de buenas que las de la 182nd. For real Tu sabes que le ponemos un special sason a lo Delacruz.