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Dat’s Bahamian!
DGJan09
Dat’s Bahamian!
Tasty native dishes to enjoy
No one can get the full Bahamian experience without sampling the cuisine. Bahamians love rich flavours and use a variety of local herbs, spices and fruits in their cooking.
Getting accurate recipes, however, is nearly impossible since local cooks and bakers rarely use measuring cups and spoons. They prepare favourite dishes by the look and taste of the food.
While most of the fruits used here can be found in all tropical countries, getting these treats anywhere else just isn’t the same.
Seafood of course
Conch (pronounced konk) is a staple of the Bahamian diet. A large mollusc, it has the consistency of calamari. It can be eaten right out of the shell, and usually is, although it is often tenderized by pounding it with a mallet.
When you visit the village of restaurants collectively known as the Fish Fry on Arawak Cay, you’ll have no trouble finding conch dishes. Here you can watch an expert remove the meat from its colourful shell. After a thorough cleaning, the meat is diced and then mixed with chopped onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers and as much of a tiny red bird pepper as you can handle. Then it’s flavoured with fresh orange and lime juice. The finished masterpiece is heaped in a bowl, and voilà, it’s ready. Scorch’ conch is scored (hence the name) with a knife and drenched in sour orange or lime juice.
Most visitors prefer crack’ conch—tenderized, battered and deep fried—or conch fritters—diced, folded into a batter of flour, eggs and milk, rolled into dumplings and deep fried. You can’t leave the island without trying at least one of these tasty variations.
Delicious alternatives
For Bahamians, boil’ fish with grits or stew’ fish with johnny cake are everyday breakfasts—as familiar as bacon and eggs with toast and coffee are to an American. Served hot, these stick-to-your-ribs dishes can be found at most restaurants that serve Bahamian food. Grouper is the fish of choice, but if that’s not in season, red and yellowtail snapper are also tasty.
Johnny cake is enjoyed year round. Imagine a cross between cornbread and pound cake, and you have the sweet bread that Bahamians call their own. Traditionally, johnny cake is simply baked in an oven and eaten straight from the pot or pan. Another version, called short bread, is pan-fried instead of baked for quicker results. Either way, they’re both delicious as well as useful for cleaning your plate. “Johnny,” incidentally, is a derivative of “journey,” because johnny cake was made to be transportable in a pocket or a knapsack.
Crab fat ’n dough is a much sought-after dish, but we’re not talking about northern snow crabs or long-legged Alaskan king crabs. There is some meat in the pincers and legs of Bahamian land crabs, but not much. What local cooks seek most of all is the tasty “fat” that lies under the carapace.
Bahamian crabs are found throughout the islands but are especially abundant in Andros, where they are the centrepiece of an annual festival. To make crab fat ’n dough, the crabs are scrubbed clean and steamed. Dough formed into balls is either fried or boiled along with them. When cooked, the crab shells are cracked open, and the fat is scooped out and combined with the dough balls.
Peas soup and doughboys is a hearty meal that makes use of locally grown pigeon peas, much different from the green peas favoured in northern climes. They’re used in such dishes as peas ’n rice, a favourite side dish. Peas soup combines vegetables, ham hocks, herbs, spices and dumplings, which are all cooked in the same pot.
Guava duff is about as Bahamian a dessert as you can get. The key ingredient is a tropical fruit that has pink, juicy flesh and a strong, sweet aroma.
Peeled, seeded and diced guava is boiled with sugar and the mixture is spread over dough (duff) and rolled into a loaf. The duff is then wrapped in cloth and boiled for three hours. Other cooks steam the loaf on a rack set two inches above boiling water for about three hours. It’s served with a butter sauce, often laced with a generous dollop of rum.
Bahamians use a number of fruits in their cuisine. One is the sugar apple, which is as soft as a ripe peach under its alligator-like skin. Its flesh is as sweet as powdered sugar, hence the name.
A not so distant relative is the soursop, which resembles a miniature green porcupine. Inside is a tangy, sweet flesh. Soursop and sugar apples are eaten off the tree, but they’re usually pulped and strained to make frozen-fruit treats, ice cream and other desserts.
Hog and scarlet plums, found in many backyards, are two more popular island fruits. They’re distinguished mainly by their colour. Hog plums, when they’re ripe, are yellow, and scarlet plums, obviously, are scarlet red.
Perhaps the most popular of the native fruits is the sapodilla, known as a “dilly,” which resembles a smooth-skinned kiwi. The sweet flesh ranges from a pale yellow to an earthy brown, and it has been compared to the taste of cotton candy. The sapodilla, a long-lived evergreen tree, produces these delicacies twice a year.
Most native fruits are available from midsummer to early winter and can be found in roadside fruit and vegetable stalls throughout Nassau.
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