Barbados in a Nutshell…

……Stories from a crazy cook’s holiday! Weeks later my eyes are still awash with white and magenta sand grains, bleu celeste waters and the heat, oh the heat!

Why Barbados?

Need you ask? Well if truth be told, all of the usually reasons to head to paradise plus a family wedding and reunion of our lives. This was one of the easiest trips to plan as we didn’t need to get visas for Barbados (bonus of being a commonwealth nation). Now if you’re used to having to travel everywhere only with the required stack of travel papers then you will understand our joy at not having to do that on this vacation.

If you ever need a reason to slow down and luxuriate under the sun, then this easternmost Caribbean island, off the coast of South America has more than enough delights to offer just about everyone, and with little or no risk of getting swept away by hurricanes and other ferocious storms as it is just off ‘hurricane lane’.

Before Barbados, I’d only heard about jetlag, ‘revered’ and ‘reviled’ by many. Now I can say I’ve been there, done that, woken up at 4 am and slept at 8pm. After a week of early-to-bed and early-to-rise, I can proclaim, with passion and conviction that jetlag is the new travel tip for 2010. Use it to your advantage…..but be prepared, especially if you have young ‘uns with you! Hear me out: on our first night in Barbados, we hit the sack at 8pm (about 1am Dutch time) and by 4am (9am Dutch time), everyone is awake.

Leading to Lesson #1, Be prepared for jetlag by stocking up on breakfast goods! The kids were starving and all we had to offer them was some fruit…and chocolate, as the restaurant at our hotel opened at 8 am. Eventually, morning came and food was had, plus we went out shopping and made sure we got enough groceries to last our entire stay, almost. The positive thing about this was that though we woke up progressively later each day, we still got up in good enough time for the five of us to get ready – bathed, clothed, fed and even a bit played out….before we went out for the day. This meant, we could join tours/activities without feeling rushed, for when you have 3 kids, sometimes coordinating things requires the prowess of a juggler!

We would have been content spending the entire week on the beach but the fabulous guides put together by the Barbados ministry of Tourism wouldn’t let us. We had brochures detailing every single thing we could do as tourists on any part of the island! We had such fun discovering loads…and the wedding was fantastic too. A chance for my husband and kids to meet my ‘American’ family, and me to reunite with them after decades.

What to know before you go

• Bajans are extremely friendly people but some are wary of having their photos taken so before you do closeups, ask. At the markets we went to, I asked before I took macro shots of fruits and veg…and other products.

• The Barbadian dollar is ‘tied’ to the US dollar at about 2 to 1.
• All beaches are public and you have express license to chill

Culinary delights

I am thankful I didn’t go to Barbados seeking food for I would have been seriously disappointed. Though some parts of the Caribbean are noted for their spices and seasonings, aka Jamaican Jerk, Bajan (Barbadian) cooking for me was just ok…..nothing earth-shattering. Now this is not to say I ate at the creme de la creme of restaurants and found them wanting, for I didn’t. I guess I’m comparing this with say Rome or Paris, perhaps unfair comparisons but…you get my point.

I sampled most of the Top Bajan dishes, #1 of which is Flying Fish and Cou-Cou, which Bajans agree on unanimously! I had the Flying Fish, liked it but never got round to Cou-Cou…

For #2 on the list of Top foods, well, that’s rather difficult to nail. While getting a drink at a small eatery, I stood next to a lady buying some Bajan soup, which she proclaimed was #2 to the disagreement of the lady behind the till, who said Macaroni pie was #2. Of course, I had to try the Macaroni pie. My verdict: it was nice but not special, a cross between lasagna and Mac n cheese but with long tubes of pasta as opposed to elbow macaroni. To be honest, I don’t know what #3 and 4 would be!

I had a Bajan breakfast of fishcakes, pumpkin fritters and salt bread. I didn’t really enjoy the fishcakes – a bit too fishy for me but I loved the pumpkin fritters. They reminded me of Akara, though sweeter and lightly spiced with cinnamon. I will definitely be trying these out at home soon. The salt bread was very nice, remarkably similar to breads in Nigeria, though not very salty. Daughter #2 loved it.

Now while I might not sound very enthusiastic about pure Bajan cooking, we fell head over heels with ‘The Ackee Tree’, a restaurant, which Zagat rates as the Number one value on the island!

I am kicking myself that we left it too late for we finally went to the restaurant 3 days before we came back. The secret? Trinidadian cuisine – warm and scented Indian spices. We ate Rotis, we had rice and we kept coming back, day after day. I’ll have to write a separate tribute to ‘The Ackee Tree’ for if I start now, that’ll be all for the night.

I also managed to sneak in a short cooking class at a local restaurant called ‘Sweet Potatoes, which was nice…but shorter than I expected from the recommendation.

….Most all Barbadians, it turns out, are willing to teach visitors how to cook Bajan-style. Visit the kitchen of Sweet Potatoes restaurant for one of its one-, two- or three-day classes, and you’ll leave with a bottle of Bajan spices and a recipe for (among other traditional dishes) Souse and Pudding….

While I left with recipes, my class lasted less than an hour, as opposed to the 2 hours advertised. Saying all that, I tasted some of the BEST Bajan food ever. This will be the subject of a future post as I have 3 recipes to share (with pretty appalling photos too!)

The one thing/place I couldn’t go to was Oistins on a Friday Night, for its famous fish fry.

Each Friday and Saturday night hundreds of locals and visitors flock to Oistins for the Fish-Fry, an opportunity to enjoy the very best local food – fried and grilled fish, fish cakes, sweet potato, macaroni pie, and coleslaw and so much more.

When we drove past it on a Sunday afternoon during a scenic tour, I could see that perhaps my culinary experience could have changed, for the better. Alas, one week was not sufficient to test that, better luck to me next time.

And to drink?

This was the very best part of our stay, the drinks. For a start, all the cold drinks, water and cocktails were served on the rocks.

Refreshing is only one word to describe sipping at voracious pace, drinks with serious thirst–quenching ability and not stopping after a few seconds. We sampled different versions of Fruit punch, from liquid to a smoothie and loved each and every one.

This non-alcoholic cocktail or orange and pineapple juice with a splash of grenadine syrup as its basic recipe is amazing, sweet but not overly so and full of tropical flavours. I could have opted for the Rum Punch on many an occasion but being the carer of 3 children, plus the fact that I eat my alcohol, I left that for others.

We also got to try Mauby, a drink made by boiling the bark of the Mauby tree, sweetened with ‘spice’ and sugar. Now Mauby is a ‘trip’ on its own: the sweetness of the sugar is only half of the matter, the other being the bitterness of the bark. As you drink, you tastebuds seesaw from bitter to sweet and back again, never lingering on one taste for very long. Served with ice, it could very well grow on you. I brought back some bark, widely available in shops and supermarkets. If you love Matcha, you’ll down Mauby for they share the same yin-yang elements.

By the end of the week, I’d drunk more water and liquids than I suspect, in the first quarter of the year. You should have seen my face, my skin – clear and smooth, a tribute to the internal cleansing!

Other thirstquenchers

Snowcones. We discovered these on day 1 proper. You know, the day after we arrived. Walking in Bridgetown, we came across a lady, Sister Marshall with a cart full of bottles. For a dollar or two, we each got a cup full of soft shaved ice, serious squirts of a syrup or two of our choice and some water. She poked straws in them and we were on our way to enjoying the best companion to the warming Bajan sunshine.

As we sat and talked, it transpired that Sister Marshall was a famous gospel singer, of course we bought her CD! When we were only halfway through our ‘Sno cones’, a lot of the sweetness had been drained away by powerful, sucking jaws and she gladly topped them up. Ginger, blueberry, orange, mango, pineapple were all out on the cart, ready to be drunk up.

If you wanted a little extra sweetness, there were tins of cocont milk and condensed milk to help you on you way. If you ever go to Barbados, make sure you have these as often as you can!!!!!!!!

There’s also ice-cream, from those at fastfood restaurants like KFC and Chefette (Barbado’s answer to MacDs). However,  Chilly Moos is by far the island’s hottest ice-cream joint. With a variety of flavours and toppings, the choice is yours. Whatever you do, avoid going there on a Sunday night when the entire population of Barbados seeks strange and wonderful ice-cream combinations, mixed together on a granite slab. We managed to go there on the afore-mentioned Sunday and big mistake. We were in a queue for a few good minutes, all because of daughter #1. Thankfully, she loved it so it was well worth the wait. Unlike me, who wasn’t so thrilled – though it was good ice-cream, my choice of cherry vanilla wasn’t as I hoped (as I’m not a fan of glace cherries). I did however enjoy the freshly made waffle cones.

The Science behind Picture Perfect

For me, the most outstanding part of the holiday was the unbelievable picturesque nature of the beaches. I can’t help feeling that those resident in the Caribbean give thanks daily for the beauty that surrounds them. I do, and I’ve only spent a week there! Think watercolours, postcards and movies. Think beaches with swathes of colour from foamy sand cream to turquoise green and simply stunning blues.

Think science.

Why are the waters of the Caribbean so blue?

1. Because of the way light is absorbed! When sunlight hits water, the shorter blue wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum scatter more effectively than the longer red and orange
2. The Caribbean waters are warmer and less iron-rich than say the Atlantic and so Plankton and algae don’t thrive here. If they did, they would ‘colour’ the water green or red, like the Red Sea!
3. The seabed is made up of a lot of white coral and coral-derived sand (at least in Barbados), which is whitish/light coloured. Contrast this with Yellow Sea, which is mud-filled.

Whatever the reasons, we enjoyed the beaches, surfing, strolling on the boardwalk, and just plain starring at the sheer magnificence of it all.

We went out on a cruise for the day, on a ship equipped with snorkeling gear and a 70ft slide.

I opted for the slide, when we moored though it took me a good 10 minutes (at least) to work up courage to slide down to the bottom. By the time I did it, my sides were knotted with fear, even with a whole crowd cheering me on (and I am NO attention seeker).

Another outing involved a submarine trip to see a shipwreck and the flora and fauna of Bajan waters.

That was serious family fun!

We surfed and swam…a lot. My husband unfortunately didn’t get to go on a jet ski. Maybe next time. And there will be a next time for sure, maybe not to Barbados but definitely to the Caribbean!

Out and about in Barbados

I found out that the best place to get a lot of foodie souvenirs like rum, spice mixes, superior unrefined cane sugar (you’ll be hard-pressed to find refined white sugar anywhere on this island), drink ingredients and more, was the supermarkets. Being a small country, a lot of products are locally made. I enjoyed shopping in Woolworth, a department store in Bridgetown, where bottles of pepper sauce and Bajan seasoning could be gotten on the cheap. I also brought back a couple of cookbooks – one general one on Caribbean cooking and a ‘rum’ cookbook.

I am looking forward to trying and sharing recipes from both soon, especially the rum one.

There is no shortage of crafts for sale, along the road side and in designated centres. Some places are open to haggling…and others are not. Whatever you are looking for as a reminder or two of your time here, there is no shortage of options. I brought back a replica Chattel house, and calabash ‘bags’. I’m sure there’s more but memory fails me.

We spent the last full day at Harrison’s cave, where a ride in an electric tram took us through the 8th wonder of the world. We saw stalactites and stalagmites, experience cave showers and the eeriness of caves!

The kids loved it, as did I.

After that, we spent the afternoon at a pottery workshop set in the hills. The kids got their portions of clay, while I looked around and got a couple of unglazed goblets.

Then we had a snack and drinks – delicious samosas with pepper jelly and chocolate cake for the children, washed down with fruit punch,….of course!

This little birdie decided to join us for some fun!

We ended the day with a visit to the Ins & Outs Emporium, a delightful shop in a Chattel house full of local products. I bought two bottles of preserves – a lime jelly and the pepper jelly, which we’ve been enjoying with pancakes!

See, when you have many kids, you don’t worry about excess luggage. This means that taking 5 pairs of shoes on a week long holiday is fine. It also means that you can shop like mad and there’ll still be room enough to bring all you want back, even if it means aching bones from lugging heavy stuff around. Worry not. So…..if you ever need a reason to multiply, look no further!

Sorrel leaves and syrup came back with me, as did rum and pepper sauce;

Some fruit cheese (aka fruit pate/membrillo….type sweets) – guava, ginger and mango;

Packs of seasoning and spices too!

So there, you have it, a snapshot of my holiday. It has taken me a good couple of weeks to write some of it down. To be honest, it doesn’t read well to me but writing it has been cathartic, a way to jog my memory of a distant holiday, especially with Spring’s advancing blossoms.

If you want to know something specific about the trip or have a Q, feel free to ask, ok?

Lots of love and have a great weekend. Mwah