Page Number: SVG610; Title: Food, Generally
I wrote this page in the spring of 2003 and touched it up a bit later. The general information is accurate, but we don't eat out a lot, and the quality of a restaurant can change overnight if their chef leaves, and that's not uncommon. Take it that you'll have to confirm what I say about restaurant food by trying it, or by asking people.
The world is a small place these days, so you shouldn't be surprised that much of the food you'll run across in the Caribbean is the same kind of stuff you'll find at home. With some differences. There are no MacDonalds or Burger Chefs on St. Vincent; but there are two Kentucky Fried Chickens.. The reason is that chicken has always been part of the local cuisine, while beef has always been scarcer and more expensive, so there is no great demand for cheap beef-based fast food.
There are pizzas available at the Pizza Palace near the airport in Arnos Vale, and at the Limin' Pub in Villa near the Young Island dock [but they are under the same management]. There are, unfortunately, no good chinese restaurants. There are now several small places that serves a "fried rice" that is pretty much like "Pelau" (see below), but unless you are the Chinese Anbassador it is hard to find an assortment of foods like we expect from a chinese restaurant, and the Ambassador has to call on the talents of the wives of her staff.
But there are places where you can get a taste of what local food was like before television and tourists Americanized everything. The beach hotels will have occasional barbecues (a caribbean word). Typically they will have whatever fish was brought in that day, chicken, and steak or roast pork grilled to your order plus a buffet of local vegetables. These run from 35-80 ECD. You can see some of the pictures I took at a buffet at the Paradise Inn here. Make sure the expensive barbecue you go to has local vegetables.
An interesting takeout is Yvette's Pork City. She is open friday and saturday evenings and sells a takeout of barbecued pork or chicken and rice, breadfruit salad or provisions for 12.50 ECD. Generally tasty and filling. The barbecue sauce isn't hot to our taste, and our dogs love the bones. Last year the Farmer's Market just beyond the supermarket at the airport began offering barbecued pork and chicken. Their's was at least as good as Yvette's and the parking was easier. Since then Yvette's has improved its parking facilities.
A couple of years ago we found a restaurant in the Russell's Shopping Center called Caribbean Cuisine where you could get local food any time and inexpensively. Unfortunately, by 2003 it had limited its menu and was boring. The Sunshine, on the second floor of a building on back street, has good local foods for lunch.
However, Nice Foods, right behind the former hotel site on Middle Street (next to the bridge) has good luncheon stuff. Either full meals or good rotis. I hope that stays true till we get down again because they have been dependable when we were in town at lunchtime.
The roti is the major example of asian-indian influence on the vincy cuisine: a mixture of meat, potatos, channa (chickpeas) and a curry sauce wrapped in a panfried bread. The Spotlight Restaurant in Frenches just outside town on the windward side serves a filling and tasty but not too spicy roti for 5ECD. It gets awfully crowded for lunch on schooldays, though.
The airport cafe has good rotis for 8ECD, but the ambiance is such that we generally pick them up and bring them home to eat. There are other places that serve roti but we don't eat in town that much and Nice Foods and the Airport are more convenient for take-out; so we can't recommend anyplace else.
There are several small restaurants that serve cheap lunch in town. The main dish is Pelau. This is made by frying some chicken, carmelizing some sugar in the fat, adding pigeon peas, rice and water, and adding the cooked chicken back in. The chinese restaurants call the same thing fried rice.
We don't eat out much at the fancy restaurants because they tend to be expensive and the quality varies according to who the chef is this year. Aggies and VJ's in town and the beach hotels in Villa are fairly reliable without being ridiculously expensive.
We prefer to cook local foods at home.
Incidentally, some friends, operating as Island Foods, are making sausages in the german style; some with west indian spices. You can get them at the local supermarkets. Also a chinese agricultural mission is introducing vegetables: bok choy is now common in the market. More about chinese later.
"Pumpkin" is the local name for a variety of what Americans call "Winter Squash". Up north you could make it with pumpkin or hubbard or butternut squash. Chicken stock, pureed pumpkin, garlic and ginger. Delicious.
The other local soup of note is Callaloo. This is usually made on a beef stock using the leaves of the dasheen plant, which are reminiscent of spinach. Spinach is a cold climate crop that doesn't grow in the tropics but dasheen grows wild.
Do not try to eat uncooked dasheen leaves. They have oxylate crystals which can be very irritating (like nettles!) until they are cooked. Also there are several plants that have large heartshaped leaves like dasheen so be careful if you pick them yourself. Dasheen have a red tinge near the base. For people who don't pick them all the time it is safer to buy them. They are sold in bundles in the market. For an EC dollar (37 cents) you can get enough for enough for a family soup. Local salads will include familiar vegetables like tomato, cucumber, raw green pepper and grated carrot. Lettuce tends to bolt in the tropics so it generally appears as a garnish. Another common garnish is sliced starfruit which tends to be tart if not fully ripe. I was surprised to find that Starfruit is sweet and juicy when it is tree-ripened.
There are also seasonal vegetables. Christophene is a vegetable that grows on a vine. It has a texture that is something like a seedless summer squash or zucchini but is a bit blander. It would work well in stews. Okra is also widely used, usually in something rather than by itself. Aubergine/eggplant is available in the market.
For starches see below.
Chicken is available imported frozen at the local supermarkets. There are the typical frozen chicken thighs and breasts that we have in the states, but they are expensive and directed toward the upscale buyer.
If you ever wondered where the rest of the chicken goes after the breastmeat is removed, the answer is the third world. The bulk sale is chickenback: the upper part with the breastmeat removed. This sells for less than $2 ($0.75US) for a package of two backs; which is enough to flavor a family meal of pelau (chicken back, pigeon peas [picked locally] and rice [imported from Trinidad]). That's also the usual daily ration for two guard dogs. It comes by the shipload so the best choice is the place with the best freezers. My guess would be that Greaves probably has the most reliable frozen storage.
Lately they have been importing frozen sliced turkey wings. If you can imagine a turkey with wings big enough to slice and bones an inch thick! I figure that after the breast meat is packaged for North Americans, the rest of the carcase is frozen and shipped to the third world. It makes a good stock and gives the dogs some bones to chew on. But I'd hate to meet that turkey in a dark alley!
Meats like beef, pork and goat are tough and expensive and butchered with cutlasses[machetes] in an open market stall; or imported frozen (moderately tough and very expensive). Fish is much more interesting. The Fish market is just off the fishing boat dock near the bus station in town. A variety is generally available: red snapper, king, dolphin fish, tuna, barracuda, old woman (very tough skin, get the seller to fillet it for you),Jacks and sometimes TriTri. Jacks are small fish eaten bones and all and TriTri are tiny and mixed into a batter and fried. Most of what they call tuna is called spanish mackerel in the states; same family but smaller. Once in a while you can find a big tuna and have the vendor cut off a slice with his cutlass.
There are also places along the road in Arnos Vale, Calliaqua and Shipping Bay where you can get fresh fish from fishermen returning in the late afternoon. Sally has problems with bones after a throat operation so we eat a lot of shark. Sally generally poaches it in citrus juice with ginger and garlic. Sybilsweet (a cross between grapefruit, tangerine and orange) and lemon works well. The liquid can be thickened with cornstarch and used as a sauce.
Penny & Philip from the Chinese Agricultural Mission just introduced us to a vegetable called "Water Convolvulus". It is something like a mild spinach and evidently grows well here. We'll try growing some.
Breadfruit is a large starchy fruit that has something of the texture and flavor of irish potatos when boiled. They were introduced to the West Indies from the South Pacific by the notorious Capt. Bligh of the Bounty. There is a breadfruit tree in the botanical garden that has a documented descent from one of the originals. You can buy roasted breadfruit in the market if you look hard. Cooked breadfruit is especially tasty refried like home-fried potatos.
The dasheen root is one of a group of starchy vegetables which a collectively called "provisions" or "ground provisions". The dasheen root is called "taro" in the Pacific and is the basis for poi in Hawaii. Eddoes, tania and yam are other provisions. Eddoes should be cooked before peeling or they get slimy. Provisions are not particularly tasty but they provide the necessary carbohydrates.
Breadnuts are the large seeds of a fruit that looks like a breadfruit. When boiled and peeled they resemble chestnuts and can be used in the same way.
Plantain are banana-like fruits that are starchy rather than sugary. They can be fried or boiled, or put in stews.
Casava has tuberous roots that are scraped or ground, washed to remove the toxic prussic acid and dried. The ground meal is sold as "Farine" in the market and boils up something like Cream of Wheat.
Rice is cheap, but pasta is relatively expensive. The locally made pasta is made from soft wheat and doesn't get the al dente texture of semolina. Macaroni Pie (aka macaroni and cheese) is a company dish.
Breadfruit Salad
In my first letter from St. Vincent I was horrified that all the restaurants served instant coffee (we drank tea). Now you can get canned ground coffee in the supermarkets and brewed coffee is now available in all good restaurants, and whole bean coffee is available in Greaves.
The local beers Haroun and Ecu are reasonably good. I've evidently lost the fine edge on my taste buds because they don't taste all that different although they are supposed to be lager and pilsner. Carib is made off-island but in the caribbean. Imported european beers and stouts are widely available.
I don't know about the local soft drinks because there are no sugar-free versions, but the Ju-C line seems very popular among kids.
The local strong rum (140 proof) is cheap; there are rum shops all over the place where a shot of strong rum is available for $1 EC ($0.37US). There are diluted versions of the local rum, but there are also milder and more flavorful Barbadan rums that aren't much more expensive. Other distilled products are widely available.
The supermarkets have some inexpensive light german wines that we like very much. I haven't done much tasting of the french wines. St. Vincent has some sort of trading relationship with the EC, so imports from Europe can be cheaper than in the states.
We make a lot of fruit juices at home from whatever is available in the market or on our trees and bushes; sometimes adding something like crystal light (which we bring down).
In the New Market the ground floor is primarily for fresh fruits and vegetables, though some vendors carry grocery (even hardware!) items of the same kind you get in the supermarket. The second floor is for small articles and notions. The third floor has small botiques of various kinds. They are primarily directed at the local customers rather than tourists.
Vegetables are mostly grown in small plots and sold in small quantities in the market. Friends who have a large scale farm tell us that the vendors add a markup of 100-100% to the price. Foreigners, especially north americans, can expect to be quoted prices that are one or two dollars higher than locals pay. There are also imported vegetables that are rebagged in small quantities and sold in the market.
Luxury vegetables like mushrooms and celery are most likely to be available in the Greaves supermarkets in Kingstown or Arnos Vale. A small stalk of imported celery just cost $6EC; a head of cauliflower was $16EC about twice what it was selling for in the states. Local celery is grown like an herb, three tiny stalks not 6" long sell for $1EC. Greaves sells in quantity to the resorts and celebrities in the Grenadines so their supermarkets are near the dock and the airport.
They tend to pick tomatoes green, like the english, and regard it more as a garnish than a vegetable.
Depending on the season you can get mango, papaya, banana, figs(small banana), guava, plumrose and other more exotic fruits. You should always take the opportunity to eat fruits in the West Indies because when they are imported into the states the flavors are a weak reflection at best. My favorites are papaya and plumrose, my wife favors mango.
Most common groceries are available in the supermarkets, along with things you might not expect, like cutlasses (machetes). Since cutlasses are used for everything from gardening to butchering they are widely available. A sprinkling of english goods (or english style goods made in Trinidad) can be found among the US branded and generic varieties. A little more expensive than at home because they are imported.
Local breads tend to be in the english style: bland. There is a whole wheat bread that is a little like Hovis, and a sweetbread something like the portugese sweetbreads available around New Bedford. There is also a sweet coconut bread that is all right. Packaged buiscuts (i.e., cookies) are in the english style (i.e., sweet) with some american clones.
One should go shopping in the market for entertainment as much as provisions. It is always a center of activity, slow on Monday, busy on Friday but reaching a peak on Saturday morning. Most stores, except for those run by Seventh Day Adventists, are open on Saturday morning. The market doubles in activity.
Bring your own bags or baskets, particularly to the Fish market, as they don't provide any. There are bag vendors: a quarter EC for a small bag and an EC dollar for a typical supermarket plastic bag. The supermarkets give you plastic bags so it is just a matter of remembering to bring some when you go to the market.
One of the characteristic local craft items is a rectangular bag of basketry. They range in size from a purse to a small suitcase and from a dollar EC or two to $20EC. Very cheap and very useful. They are sold on the street, in some stores or in the Craft Center at Frenches corner.
Rice and flour comes in 10kg (22lb) woven plastic bags that have handles sewn on and when opened properly become shopping bags. Sometimes the local ladies will sew decorative trims and handles for them and sell them in market.
But that's for ex-pats like us who spend some time in St. Vincent. If you are down for less than a month you won't have any problem eating well and pleasureably on St. Vincent.
Add: At the northern end of Bay Street you will find the market. There is a very wide selection of tropical fruits and vegetables transported from the outlying villages each day. There is also a charcoal market facing the new fish market. Coconuts are sold from barrows while they are still green with soft delicious jelly. The vendors deftly open these large young nuts with three quick and well-placed blows of the cutlass. The water of these coconuts is both refreshing and excellent for the health. Prices are highly competitive and this is one of the best places in the Caribbean for yachtsmen to take provisions on board.
