Mar 12 2009
Island sunshine in my kitchen
I’ve been feeling more than a bit blue this week. 12 years ago I was on honeymoon in Antigua, now I am sadly separated from my husband. At least I have some great memories of the island and just yesterday was enthusing about it to a friend who is visiting there on a cruise boat later this month.
We went back in 2000, different hotel (Sunsail Colonna the second time, our honeymoon hotel at Jolly Harbour was trashed by a hurricane), and we were very well entertained by some Antigua residents we had m
et online.
We had some great sailing and memorable meals, with them and on our own, one of the best was Coconut Grove at Dickenson Bay. According to my researches it’s still open despite some vicious hurricanes since then. Antigua has an offshore reef which helps to protect from some of the worst storm surges, but with higher sea levels the future could be less certain.
How do we link to British food? Well, settlers from the Caribbean were in the vanguard of immigration in the 50’s and 60’s but the vibrant fruits and vegetables typical of Caribbean cooking were longer to reach our tables than other newcomers to the UK.
Now we can buy sweet potato, yams, scotch bonnet chillies, pineapple and fresh coconut in most supermarkets, and ready mixed jerk and other seasonings. My favourite brand is called Walkerswood, but have also used Dunns River which seem to be easily available in the UK.
The first meal ever cooked for me by a boyfriend was jerk chicken, it was fabulous and it took me years before I could find a recipe to re-create it in my own kitchen. He is Jamaican, his name is Philip and I met him at college at Harlow tech college on a journalism course and I often wonder what he’s doing now - don’t recall his surname so can’t look online.
If you don’t want to use ready-made jerk seasoning, I’ve researched a good recipe that is easy to make and find the ingredients for. Also on the UKTV Food site, I found this unusual cake made from sweet potato. I tried it, changing the recipe just slightly to be more like my favourite lemon drizzle cake. I made holes in the warm cake with a skewer and the thinner and less sweet syrup I made had orange rind rather than segments.
When I lived in South London for a while in the 1990’s I saw goat on sale in Sainsburys, albeit frozen, but have not yet seen it in Portsmouth. It’s a common ingredient, especially in Jamaican cooking but you can use mutton which has a stronger flavour than lamb. The spices will tenderise it, so you can go for cheaper cuts.
Mutton is beginning to be available again, after going out of fashion for years. The official definition is sheep meat from an animal over two years old. I found Mutton Renaissance, an excellent site that gives lots of information. Our heir to the throne, HRH Prince of Wales supports it, so that is a good enough recommendation for me. Previous readers will know I am a Riverford Farms customer and mutton now features on their organic meat menu. Try this spicy stew and to go with it, rice and peas – not garden peas as we know them, but a type of bean called ‘pigeon peas’ or small kidney beans.
Typical ingredients you will find in the cooking of many islands include saltfish – usually a type of cod, ackee – a tree growing fruit, but used as a vegetable, limes, pineapple, guava, mango, bananas and plantain, breadfruit, papaya, okra and various squashes like acorn. More exotically named, there is soursop and christophene or chayote.The latter turns up in both savoury and sweet dishes. Callaloo is a green vegetable similar to spinach or chard. If you are in London, try Brixton or Borough Market for fresh fruit and veg from the above lists and recipes.
Apart from hot fresh chillies, you’ll find allspice, the seed of the pimento in jerk seasoning and many other dishes and different types of pepper ground and whole in stews and thyme as the commonest cooking herb (herb has other meanings, so be careful!)
I can’t bring back the Caribbean sunshine to my life, but I can at least cook something spicy and good, and have a tot of rum in my coffee or hot chocolate. Smile!
very interesting