Tasting St Lucia

the FLAVORS of St Lucia...
Though my pallet has not changed while living on this island.....I still love a good ol' american cheeseburger, french fries, and a milk shake, but we have had the oppurtuntiy to broaden our horizons you may call it!
People commonly ask us...what do you eat in St Lucia...well here it is!
We have tasted things that we may never get to taste again, and several things I personally NEVER want to taste again.  At any moment in time, I could walk outside and pick a different piece of exotic fruit to munch on for the day.
Some of my favorite fruits now, are things I had never even heard of before...aki,  coco cooli, sugar apples, guava, five finger (star fruit), avocado, bananas, coconuts, mangoes....the list could go on forever! Many people here survive off whatever fruit is in the season at the time. 
...Mangos are my favorite!

Fruits I never want to even look at again....Rose apple and Tamarind!! GROSS! Just say no, if you are ever offered Tamarind Candy!

Funny as it sounds...one of my favorite things they make here is St Lucia is Mac n Cheese! Yeah I know right....they make the best baked Mac n Cheese you will ever have, and they call in "Mac Pie".

Makin Mac Pie with some friends!

 



Other popular favorites are "One Pot"...basically you put anything and everything into "one pot"...which usually ends up pretty good!

They drink whats called "Coco Tea" and dumplings...hot choclate on steroids...rather than opening a packet, stirring and adding a marshmallow, you grind the coco stick, use cinnamon bark, and whip up some homemade dumplings...60 mins later! ha ha...you have "hot chocolate".

St. Lucia comes from an area of the Carribean called the "West Indies", and there is definitely an Indian influence on there food..."Curry" and "Roti" (similar to a burrito, potatos, currry, and meat wrapped in a soft shell) are dishes you can get almost anywhere.

Lucians love there bread.  There is a bakery on every corner...and in every direction.  It comes from the French influence here...they eat long skinny, white loaves of bread. 
One of my favorites things are called "bakes", funny as it might be though...bakes are a scone type bread that is most commonly fried. Figure that one out for me!

 

 Frying up some bakes!

 

Fish...or chicken....(bones included).  I never thought I would eat, shark, stingray, barcuda, turtle, or dolphin...but if they catch it here, they eat it! More often than not...locals just chop it up, bones and all and cook it.  I have learned to chew carefully!

Salt fish and green fig (green banana) salad. Imagine a potato like salad with a mayo base, and thats what you get.  Salt fish is dried, salted, preserved fish, used in alot of dishes.  The salt fish is soaked to rehydrate it and then chopped and used in countless dishes.

They eat potatoes here in St Lucia, but more often they use Breadfruit, Dasheen, Green Fig (green bananas) or Plantains as there starch. All pretty similar and used in many different ways....just like the good ol IDAHO SPUD!

Breadfruit.

My favorite response when I tell people where I am from, "oh...where the potatoes come from!" YES...even half way across the world, in St Lucia, Idaho is known for there POTATOES!

 

Bought at our local lucian super market!

 

Unlike America, you often eat what gets put in front of you here.  You don't always have a choice whether you want this or that.  I have learned to just say a short prayer, pop it in my mouth and chew.  Sometimes its good and sometimes its not so good, but being picky just doesn't fly here!

You learn to adapt and adjust to your surroundings when you are in a forgien place, and even though things may come as a shock at first...you learn to make due and get the most out of your experience. But one thing is for sure...I'm excited to have some good Taco Bell and McDonalds soon!