Back in Barbados

I know I said that I would try to blog daily while on my visit to Guyana but there was no time, there were so many things to do, many things to see and to eat! My taste-buds had a great time absorbing the tastes home; from curries to stews to pastries to rotis to chinese food to creole food.

My mother still makes the best cook-up rice I’ve ever eaten and I swear it will be that way always. Her home-made mauby and ginger beer are full of flavour; my first sip of each brought tears of joy to my eyes – I’d forgotten what the real thing tastes like.

I’ve brought back a few things with me that will help the taste of home to linger longer.

Visit my ablum online for some food scenes from Guyana.

Arrival

What a fantastic way to be greeted upon arrival home for Christmas – black cake and rum punch at the airport, delivered personally by Santa! It really does not get any better!

A friend who’s travelling with me spilled her rum punch and had to get a replacement, a woman nearby whispered: “Like you drunk already.”

I’ve found that I am so excited to eat the foods I have not had in ages and I am not making as many notes as I should be; I am promising myself that I am going to have some on another occasion when I have slowed down; right now I just feel like eating everything with caution thrown to the wind; but I am being sensible.

Home for Christmas

I’m going home for Christmas. It’s been 8 years since my last Christmas in Guyana. It’s a great time for a foodie like me to be visiting, not because of the abundance of the season but because it provides a unique opportunity to re-acquaint my taste-buds with the foods I grew up on; and also to evaluate my taste.

What I mean by evaluating my taste is this – do some of the foods I long for still have that evocative look, smell and taste that transports and elevates me to culinary heights? or, have my taste-buds changed? Have they gotten too sophisticated or have they lost their knowledge of some things?

Follow me on-line as I eat at home. I’ll try to post daily of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch of food.

Happy Holidays Everybody!

Counting Calories

Read Kim Severson’s story in this week’s New York Times as it relates to the recent ban on Trans Fats and the choices we make.
The link is the title of this post.

Vote Trans Fat Ban

Click on the link above for an update on the voting to take place in New York. For the original story, please see my earlier post on September 27, 06.

Preparing to Eat

In this week’s column I wrote about preparing for the Christmas day meal. In doing research for the column, I also asked some of my friends how they prepare for the holiday feasting: preparing for consumption. Without “outing” them, here are some of the things they said:

“I join a weight-loss program to make space for all the new weight to go.”
“Deliberate shopping for pants with elastic waists is always a bad sign.”
“Go on a fish diet.”
“Clean out the system – epson salts and senna pods.”
“Stop drinking sweet drinks & alcoholic beverages two weeks before…”
“Stay away from all meats.”

You always remember your first time

This week my very first newspaper column as a food writer was published in Barbados’ Sunday Sun (check it out and tell me what you think!). It was such a thrill picking up the newspaper this morning and reading my words.

I look forward to the joys of being a weekly columnist – getting my view point out there, writing about a topic I love.

I even look forward to the drama of being a writer – the anxiousness of an approaching deadline, the demands of the empty computer screen.

Nevertheless, there are parts of the newspaper publishing business I don’t think I will ever enjoy and I experienced these for the first time this week too. Those pesky editing gremlins twisted some of my words. Bruised ego aside, my main concern is that the twisted words will lead some people to make mistakes in the kitchen when making the Bajan delicacy, conkies. Luckily we now have the blogosphere and I can set the record straight.

So here it is:

Despite what my column seemed to say today you should never use a food processor when making conkies – a box grater is the best tool. A food processor will give the ingredients a very fine chop instead of a very fine grind that is needed to make your conkies smooth. Secondly, also ignore what the editing gremlins say about mixing the ingredients to your desired consistency. The mixture should be soft and moist but not watery and running.
I hope you’re going to try making the conkies. Let me know how they turn out. Holla if you have any questions.

The Best Gift

I was inspired a couple years ago after reading Ruth Reichl’s editoral in the holiday edition of Gourmet Magazine to make my Christmas gifts. She wrote eloquently (as she always does) of a friend she knew as a child, Alice, a West Indian woman who was a great cook. She said Alice listented to her friends all through the year as they talked about foods they missed, foods they remembered etc and at Christmas, she (Alice) would make these foods and give them as gifts. Each time, every time, the people on the receiving end of the gift-giving venture were always ecstatic. So last year, instead of buying my gifts, I made them: Christmas fruit and rum cakes. All my friends loved their presents and loved the fact that they did not have to make a cake that year. The joy was in the giving and the receiving.
Why don’t you trying making your gifts this year? It could be your friends favourite dish, snack, cookie or even drink – like homemade ginger beer! Trust me, it’s the gift they will remember and cherish all year.

Pork & Trichinosis

On a recent visit to the United States, a friend of mine, dining out, ordered the pork chop dish on the menu. She was surprised when the server asked her how she would like the pork chop done. She politely responded that she would like it well done, fully cooked, all the while thinking to herself: what sort of question is that, pork is always cooked through.
Back in Barbados, she recounted the encounter to me. I smiled and then explained to her that it is now safe to eat pork medium done (slightly pink in the middle) instead of well done.
Trichinosis (round worm) usually associated with not fully cooked pork is no longer a concern due to modern feeding practices in the United States and other parts of the world over the last 30 years. In the past, the raw intestines from slaughtered hogs used to be ground up with their feed, hence Trichinella Spiralis.
The actual temperature that kills Trichinella, if it is present, is 140 degrees F and experts recommend cooking pork at 160 degrees F to be safe.
Since thermometers can be in-accurate, erring on the side of caution and cooking the meat at 160 degrees F is best.
Those of us from the Caribbean are accustomed to our meat and poultry always being well done.

Caribbean Food

To me, Caribbean Food is complex yet simple, rich yet humble and it is definitely more than a flower or fruit garnish on a plate. Our heritage is rife with diversity and it shows in our food – Chinese, African, Indian, Portugese, English and Native Indian. While our cuisine cannot be seen as authentic Chinese, Indian, African etc. the influence has definitely made our cuisine unique and exotic.

It pains me when I travel and encounter a dish that advertises itself on the menu as Caribbean only to come just garnished with a piece of fruit well-known in the Caribbean. I can hear my mother’s warning ages ago: don’t go to an Italian Restaurant, order their interpretation of a Chinese dish and complain that it lacked the flavour and taste you were expecting or vice versa.

Share your thoughts on Caribbean Food and what it means to you.