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What's on the Menu?
While you'll find everything from sugary breakfast
cereals to hot dogs and pizza on resort menus, most resorts include some
local dishes on every menu. Here's a look at some Caribbean menu favorites:
Breakfast
• ackee and saltfish,
the national dish of Jamaica. Ackee is a small fruit that is harvested
only when it bursts and reveals its black seeds; before that time the
fruit is poisonous. Ackee is cooked and resembles (and tastes) much like
scrambled eggs.
• johnny cakes and boiled fish for breakfast in the Bahamas
Soups
• pepperpot,
a spicy stew
• asopao, a chicken and rice soup in Puerto Rico.
• stoba di cabrito (goat stew) in Curaçao
Entrees
• fried fish
• stewed lamb with pan bati (pancake) on Dutch islands
• keshi yena (a hollowed wheel of Edam cheese filled with
meat and baked to combine flavors) on Dutch islands
• conch (pronounced konk), a shellfish served chopped, battered
and fried in conch fritters
• grouper, a large fish caught in the waters just offshore,
also appears on every menu
• flying fish
• fried plantains
• pattie, a turnover filled with spicy meat that’s a
favorite lunch snack with locals in Jamaica
• jerk, pork, chicken, or fish is marinated with a fiery mixture
of spices including fiery Scotch bonnet peppers, pimento or allspice,
nutmeg, escallion, and thyme. This is a favorite dish in Jamaica.
• empanadillas, little meat turnovers in Puerto Rico.
• roti, a burrito-like fast food that traces its roots to
India; served in Trinidad and Tobago. Look for “buss up shot”
at most diners; this is a roti that’s torn up like a “busted
up shirt” and is eaten with a fork rather than by hand.
Side Dishes
• peas (usually
red beans or pigeon peas) and rice: the number one side dish in the Caribbean
• cou-cou (a cornmeal and okra dish) in Barbados
• jug-jug (a dish made of Guinea corn and green peas) in Barbados
• christophine, a type of squash
• dasheen (a root vegetable similar to a potato)
• mofongo, fried plantains mixed with fried pork rinds and
seasoned with garlic, in Puerto Rico
• afungi, a pudding of cornmeal and okra
• fungi (pronounced foon-gee), a tasty accompaniment that’s
somewhat like cornbread dressing; in the Virgin Islands.
Dessert
• ducana,
a pudding made from grated sweet potato and coconut, sugar, and spices,
and boiled in a banana leaf
• flan, a wonderful custard
• tembleque, a custard made with coconut milk and sprinkled
with cinnamon in Puerto Rico.
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