Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Virgin Islands food

Market Square on St. Thomas, a block from my high school, Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School.
What do I recall about foods of the VI: At home, we pretty much ate as we had in TN, after bringing the groceries across from St. Thomas on the ferry. Had to keep a lot of it in the freezer due to humidity. But Bob Nose would sometimes bring up lobsters that he had caught and grill for us.
At my high school cafeteria, we supposedly had goat! And there was also fungi, a cornmeal mush kind of thing. Everywhere was chicken leg and johnnycake. The chicken was delicious, very spicy, as at Joe's Lunch wagon on St. John. St. Thomas had some Trinidadians selling East Indian inspired food such as roti. I often got tamarind sno-cones on the street after school. There were lots of fruits, such as mango (little wild ones picked right off the tree), genip, mami apple, sugar apple. There'd be fish frys to eat and dance at on St. John. We didn't do much fresh fish buying tho, wish we had. I recall sitting with Phyllis at the park visitor center as she ate her lunch of things like pumpkin, callaloo, sweet potato (white ones), dashin (?). She was of Carib descent from Dominica.
There was a drink, maubi, sold at the market in St. Thomas, a reddish brown liquid made from roots and herbs, who knows what. Non-alcoholic. Alcohol? Rum of course which was .99 cents for a bottle of Cruzan. Guavaberry at Christmastime.

1 comment:

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