Monday, January 7, 2013

Mysterious Yet Passionate Local Produce

I have recorded my little "apartment video" for you guys, but it's a little slow to download from my phone.  That will have to be tomorrow's post.  Today I thought I would share one of our weekend adventures with you guys!  First thing in the morning on Saturday we went to the Portsmouth market.  This is an open air market where locals come and sell fruits and veggies that they grow on their land.  Jonathan and I will have to do some experimenting with some new things in order to keep up here in Dominica.  The things that are readily available (and in surplus!) are dasheen root, passion fruit, mangoes, cucumbers, bananas, sugar cane, coconuts, and plantains (among many other things).  The island is VERY fertile and just about everything grows well here.  I'll have to get used to cooking some new things because most of what is in abundance here is REALLY hard to find or nonexistent in the states.  I have quickly developed a major love affair with passion fruit (pun not intended...but funny...).  If you follow my pinboards on Pinterest at all, that explains the dramatic influx of passionfruit recipes! Here are some pictures from the market and our haul (lots of the vendors don't like you to take pictures, so I had to be sneaky...):


The Chaquita Banana lady really does exist!  People walk around with giant bags of stuff balanced on their head all around here.  It's funny to see but also amazing that they can balance those things going up and down all the hills around here!

$40 EC (a little less than $15 USD) bought us this nice little stash...

Tomatoes.  These are really hard to find in the grocery stores here and we were told to buy them as green as possible.  Even 3 days later on my countertop they're already completely red.  Things ripen quickly around here...

Passion Fruits...oh so delicious.  I'll post later about what they look like on the inside and how you eat them.  We bought this whole big bag and they're already halfway gone today!  PS-those are green onions in the background there.  I apparently decided they weren't important enough for their own picture...)

Okra!  I've already got a jar pickling in the fridge right now (thanks for the recipe Helen!).  We're gonna fry the rest up with my Gammy's recipe later...

Wax beans.  I've never eaten them fresh before, but they were so pretty and a steal for only $2 EC ($0.75 USD).  I just couldn't pass them up.  We also got some fresh green beans from the same vendor.

Freshly sheared sugar cane.  I'll have to get you some pictures of this little booth (I was a little shy and didn't want to offend them by asking if I could take pictures...I'll be bolder this weekend...).  They have all these sugar canes just stacked up on a back table with a guy shearing them right then and there.  We went up to the booth and Jonathan asks what it is.  The lady says, "Sugar cane."  Kind of like duh?! And he says, "What do you do with it?".  She says, "You eat it!".  Again...kind of like duh?!  But apparently you bite some off, chew it (it tastes like sugar water) and then spit out the fibers.  I'm gonna try them in a passion fruit sweet tea recipe I found...

Cucumbers.  They are DELICIOUS here.  They taste like cucumber...not like water like they do in the states.  Most of them are little midgey ones like this.  I'm most definitely going to be doing some pickling of these beauties soon...

Potatoes.  Apparently these are the hot commodity down here.  They can be expensive, but we got this bag for $8 EC (about $3 USD).  Root vegetables are a big staple around here.  Everything has a starch in it...

So there ya have it...our Portsmouth market experience.  There is a free shuttle that takes you down there every Saturday.  I will definitely be making that a weekly thing and then planning our menu around what I find that's good at the market.  Something that will take some getting used to around here is the lack of meat.  You really want to avoid eating beef (apparently it's REALLY tough and flavorless here) and the only other option is chicken or fish.  Since I'm not a dark meat chicken fan, I guess fish will have to suffice!  We haven't come across the fresh fish market yet.  They were selling fresh yellow fin tuna at the market Saturday but it freaked me out a little...so I didn't buy any.  I will at some point, but for now we'll just have to let the local restaurants cook it for us.  They probably do a better job than I could anyway, not to mention I can avoid making my microscopic apartment smell like a fish toot (that's for you Patrick...). Most of our protein will have to come from beans and veggies and stuff I guess.  So far we are no worse for the wear!  So Sara, you and your vegetarian self would be in HEAVEN down here! ;)

Tomorrow I'll post the apartment video (I promise!) and then Wednesday I'll post some pictures from the Emerald Pool, Trafalgar Falls, and the Sulphur Springs.  Gorgeous...downright breathtaking stuff!  For now, I'll leave you with a picture of one of the locals we have had the pleasure to meet.  He and his gang hang around down at Portsmouth Beach.  They're quite friendly (very unlike his cousins in Freeport) and they all seem to know that I need some serious puppy love since my furry baby is not with me.  It's not quite the same but it does fill the empty spot a little...




1 comment:

  1. From Patrick... "Thanks for the shout out! Everything smells like a toot... to you. Ha."

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