Deh Conch Ting: 23 Sep 08
The Galley Slave has improvised…1001 ways with chicken. My many market visits have inspired me to find out more about local or Creole foods. Our nearest supermarket for instance has a freezer stocked with pig’s tails, cow heels, liver, tripe, chicken feet, hogs toes, blood sausage, pickled pig’s snout and other such interesting/choice cuts.
Beef of any variety is a rare sight indeed, although we have been able to find minced beef at times. But there’s always plenty of frozen chicken! A whole new meaning was added to “chicken” in Dominica, however. Mountain chicken’s little legs belong to an unfortunately named frog, the crapaud.
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| Fisherman, Antigua |
Creole cooking traces its beginnings back to the times of Plantocracy and “imported” African slaves. A hard life meant adapting traditional recipes with what was available. The Planters weren’t that generous, so little piggie destined for Sunday roast, meant offal and disposables for the slaves to make do with. And so they did, remarkably well.
In fact, some dishes like Mannish Water (Goat Water) made from ram goat offal etc is declared a popular performance enhancer. Perhaps they could whip up a quick batch for some of our footie teams…. BW is devastated that the Broncos were defeated recently, especially by Melbourne! (Yes, yes...I know what they mean by performance!!)
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| Coconut Palms Antigua |
Coupled with these popular cuts are the wonderfully descriptive dish names. Roti (yes, East Indians became indentured workers as well) can be served plain or stuffed with curry as doubles – popular fast foods. It can also be called “bus-up-shut” when beaten to a flaky consistency or “fling up &clap”. Blaff is a spicy fish stock; coo coo fungi is a polenta-like cornmeal with okra; foo foo is cooked plantain; and jerk, a popular spicy dressing used mostly on chicken destined for the bbq. Grenada’s national dish is “oil down”. Dumplings are popular and are known as spinners, floaters, sinkers depending upon – well, who knows! Soups, stews and curries (the spicier the better!) are very popular.
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| Easy catch |
Seafood is a popular meal-time basic too; it’s abundant and fresh. However lobster & lambi (or conch) supplies have suffered due to their popularity - one of the downsides of a tourism driven economy. The aroma of dried saltfish permeates every supermarket aisle…..driving me well away. On the up side, Grenada is known as the spice island, so the market in particular is fragrant with the aroma of freshly grown nutmegs, cloves, mace and cinnamon.
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| Feeding Baby Stingrays |
Ground provisions or earthy “blue food” are also piled high on market stalls. Readily available root crops include sweet potato, yam, tania, eddo and dasheen (taro). I think most gardens have a patch or two of these favourites. Dried lentils such as pigeon peas, kidney beans and chick peas (Americans call them garbanzos) are also plentiful and cooked imaginatively. Staples like limes and coconuts (brown, green and in-between) are in plentiful supply. We use lime in everything, from a chicken “wash” to slices in our beer but I still buy coconut milk in tins. The lovely market lady brandished her huge cutlass (machete) with such precision when prepping our coconut water drinks; it’s a real skill! I can’t be trusted with anything sharper than a butter knife…
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| Who kicked over my gin, again? (whilst cleaning a fish) |
Other vegies available in plentiful supply are okra, christophene (choko), plantains (also called green figs or locally “bluggoes”), calaloo, similar to spinach but with a nasty prickle if eaten raw, and the biggest avocados (zaboca) I’ve ever seen. Of course, fruit & veg are mostly seasonal and not always grown commercially as we do, so quality is not always guaranteed. Supply also varies tremendously between islands. Breadfruit, though considered an island staple, was introduced by Captain Bligh in 1793 as a way of improving food supplies for slaves. He would have had plants delivered earlier had it not been for the famous mutiny which sidetracked him for a wee while.
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| Lunch-time snooze wired for sound |
The best has been left to last… Mango season is nearly over, so we’re indulging. Some are a bit stringy and BW complains that they just aren’t to Queensland standard but the crew could not be called scurvy!
Over the course of our journey we’ve sampled small sweet pines, sun-ripened paw paw, local green-skinned oranges, guava, soursop (custard apple), passionfruit and carambola or star fruit. We also tried a fruit that is lychee-like but I’ve yet to find out what it’s called (possibly the guinep). My attempts to ask the rasta vendor resulted in some interesting hand waving and a few laughs for us all. Well, we now know how to eat what-ever they are!
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