A batch of home-made maple syrup. - Contributed

DaviotKelly, Staff Reporter

This week, our ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 tour takes us to the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis are in our spotlight as well as the great white north - Canada.

In St. Kitts and Nevis, fresh fish and meat form the staple of their diet while goat is also popular. The goat water stew is unique to the area. It's an interesting mix of goat, breadfruit, green pawpaw (papaya), and dumplings (also known as 'droppers') in a tomato-based stew.

Maple syrupcomes from eastern Canada, particularly Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and the northern United States.

Sap is boiled in a 'sugar house' (also known as a 'sugar shack' or 'cabane sucre'), a building which is louvered at the top to vent the steam from the boiling maple sap.

Traditionally, maple syrup was harvested by tapping a maple tree through the bark and into the wood phloem then letting the sap run into a bucket. Production is concentrated in February, March and April, depending on local weather conditions.

It must be noted that different Canadian provinces have different dishes, but maple syrup seems accepted by most Canadians.

INGREDIENTS

10 lb. goat meat (Mutton)

2 lb. (1kg.) green pawpaw (diced)

2 lb. (1kg.) breadfruit

1 lb (500g.) flour

1 lb. (500g.) onions

1/1 pt. (125 ml.) cooking oil

gravy browning

bouquet garni

1 lb. (500g.) cooking tomatoes

6 tbsp. (30ml.) tomato ketchup

2 oz. (50g.) margarine

Salt and black pepper to taste

3 Maggi cubes

METHOD/DIRECTIONS

Wash meat, cut into serving pieces and season with salt and pepper. Set aside for 30 minutes.

Lightly brown in cooking oil.

Put into large pot and simmer for two hours.

Remove from fire. Dice pawpaw, breadfruit and onions and saute in margarine.

Add to meat and return to fire. Simmer gently and add bouquet garni and whole peppers.

Mix three tablespoons (45ml.) flour to a smooth paste with water, add two tablespoons (30ml.) gravy browning.

Add to stew and continue simmering. With the remaining flour, make tiny dumpling (droppers) and add to the stew.

Add cubes and continue simmering until meat is very soft, and the stew brown in colour.

Remove bouquet garni and hot peppers.

Serve hot with bread rolls.

Maple Syrup

To collect the sap, holes are bored into the maple trees and hollow tubes (taps, spouts), are inserted. Modern use of plastic tubing with a partial vacuum has enabled increased production.

During processing, the sap is fed automatically from the storage tank through a valve to a flat pan to boil it down until it forms a sweet syrup.

The process is slow, because most of the water has to boil out of the sap before it is the right density. It takes approximately 40 litres of sap to make one litre of maple syrup.

Information taken from /www.caribbeanchoice.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org and www.food24.com