Rosemary Parkinson, Contributor
Sweet shop ham from Miss Pilgrim.
BORN IN the United States, Vronique Wilson, sitting beside me on my flight, was meeting up with her mother, a returning national, in the parish of St. Phillip. It was a first visit and she did not know what to expect. Having landed in the night, I knew morning would mesmerise her. Our Caribbean islands are like that. Fate brought Vronique and I together again at a shopping mall. She was beaming. "Girl, I love this place. It's so beautiful. I want to come and live here too!"
Surrounded by serious crystal-clear blue waters and beaches like granulated sugar, Barbados is indeed picturesque. Visitors are immediately impressed. There is also a quiet order - a sense of being clean and safe. A certain politeness prevails, although I got a kiss-me-neck backlash in the market from a vendor. Asking politely for a photo of her stall, she set up she face like thunder, and in her Bajan twang voiced loudly: "You gotee pay for dat! Or yu gine haff to buy someting from muh! Yuse can't jest come in hear and aks me for a flim of moy stall. Buy someting, den we gine talk." The photo was worth the US$3 and the seasoning. This Friday morning, nothing would spoil my day - it would be about delicious, scrumptious local food.
CHEAPSIDE MARKET
Miss Harriet and her cou-cou dishes.
Anybody who comes to Barbados without visiting the Food Court above Cheapside Market has missed a terrific Bajan meal at decent prices - hard to find in Barbados these days. The best cooks on the island refused to feed me unless I interceded - elevators not working and people selling food 'illegally' on the ground floor were hurting their business. There was no convincing them that their problems would only be printed in a Jamaican newspaper. Hopefully, a Bajan will read this column and pick up the slack with the proper authorities. It is difficult for older folks to climb the two flights of stairs to the Food Court and in Buhbayduss rules are rules, so how dem others selling food where no man supposed to?
Appetisers were slices of ham from Miss Pilgrim - sweet for days is her shop-ham, perfectly baked madame's secret way. A June Plum (Golden Apple here) juice from Grace's Health Food booth washed that down as I watched Miss Harriett stir she cou-cou, her helper frying fish cakes simultaneously. One cannot stir cou-cou and tend to other things lest the pot turn bad. Sliced rounds of okra, seasoned and boiled with chopped peppers; corn meal already softened in water poured in ever so slowly while the cou-cou stick is turned round and round until a thick, but baby smooth mash called corn cou-cou is achieved, traditionally served with steamed flying fish or saltfish creole. I eat a hot 'proper' saltfish cake which prepared me for a heaping plate of cou-cou and saltfish, while my mother chooses stewed chicken. The aromas of stewed lamb, pork, rolled steamed flying fish in yellow butter, green banana cou-cou and boiled cassava, had taste buds in a twist. Choices are difficult here.
Food exchange
Miss Dominica and her old time sweets. - Photos by Rosemary Parkinson
The feast ends with a sliver of Miss Pilgrim's light fruit cake. We ventured downstairs for a couple of old time sweeties from my Dominican vendor-friend who travels back and forth bringing spices and other exciting goodies from her birthplace. This is how it should be - every island moving island specialities, vegetables and fruits from market to market. But alas! It appears that our prime ministers chat and sign-up reams of paper under the banner of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, but nobody tells customs 'anyting' making life very, very difficult for importers of perishables that literally perish before clearance. I don't get it. If de leaders seh it so, how come it not really so? Customs better get with the programme. Food exchange between the islands cuts our high food import bills. Nuff said.
Like many a market in the Caribbean, this is where you make friends for life. There's always much hugging, kissing and requests for report on what gine-on outside Barbados. Even the butchers get into the action scurrying from air-conditioned booth to booth (Yes, there are clean air-conditioned booths), removing tenderloins from cow or pig, understanding my love for market prices. Why would I want to pay US$15 upwards a pound for these choice pieces when I can buy same (better tasting too 'cause is fresh and ours), for US$3 a pound, eh? By the way, all that food I just talked about including the drinks for two cost me all of US$15. So if you come to the land of the flying fish and miss out on Cheapside Market and its food court, crapaud smoke your pipe!
DOWN DOVER SIDE
Friday night on the Dover side of St. Lawrence Gap is hot at Scotty's - a sort of mini-mart cum-deli-cum-liming spot for locals and visitors. Beastly-cold Banks beers, rums with chasers, good food choices from the buffet at market and rum-shop prices, had a bunch of us friends gathered under the starry night, shoulder to shoulder with old and new faces.
The group includes: Loretta, chef Robert Oliver, Gracie, Peter and Doris from Germany and the local character Ivan vociferously spewing out foolishness amidst peals of laughter. Background steel-pan sounding sweet, mucho-mucho drinks imbibed by the ever-growing crowd were the order of the night before moving on to the best university of life in Barbados - Braddie's Rum Shop. Karaoke blaring, would-be 'Barbados Idols' belting out sounds, dancing the old-time way (this means touching and keeping in step to the music), shouts for Braddy's drinks or fried chicken livers ended an evening of pure unadulterated great entertainment that did not hurt the pocket at all. One last drink at Nelson's Arms Too on the way home in Worthing made my Friday night, for the first time in months, a non-working pleasure.
Karma, the Indian philosophy of getting back what you give out, is a serious state not to be fooled with. May 2007 help us to understand this.
