The menu

Perhaps it's my northern, hunter/gatherer upbringing but I find that I wander through the hills of Grenada thinking..."What's that? Can I eat it?" There is a plethora of new and bizarre veggies on this lush island to discover and eat. Leaf, by sprout, I'm trying to make my way through all of them. A farmer's market is held on top of the school twice a week where I happily buy my football sized avocado, mangos and whatever the mystery plant of the day is. Here are some of the green residents of Grenada.



Massive Avocados (this one is actually on the small size)


This is a soursop and perhaps one of the more bizarre fruits of the island. It grows on a broadleaf evergreen tree and can be watermelon size. Outwardly the fruit is rather spiny and protected by a green shell. There are a variety of ways to eat the soursop, though all involve making an incredible mess, with juice running from your mouth to your elbows. The flavor is very rich, with strong pineapple/strawberry like citrus tones mixed with the creamy texture of a banana/coconut.


Next in line for the weird award is the skinnep. Grapelike in formation and the size of ping-pong balls, these are the lunchbox fruit of the island. They can be tossed around, stuffed in bags and they're good to go. The fruit is encapsulated in a hard green rind (like a mini lime). You have to crack the shell open with your teeth and then suck out the fruit which is wrapped around a large pit. For those who have "texture issues" with food, this is not the fruit for you. Skinneps are reminiscent of a raw oyster texture wise. According to Caribbean folk wisdom, girls learn the art of kissing by eating this fruit. They're entertaining to eat but can dry your mouth out, much like a choke cherry.

On to my favorite. The mango. Nothing unusal about Grenadian mangos, except for the price and availability. I get 5 mangos for 5 ECs or less. With a 2.67 exchange rate that's not even $2.00 US. I consume a lot of mangos and mango smoothies.


And the winner of the bizarro category goes to the breadfruit. I bought this after a friend explained it as a citrusy potatoe. "So like a yam," I said. "No," he said. "Nothing like a yam. Citrusy potatoe." Mmmmmm...okay. So in the basket it went, and off I went to search on allrecipe.com how one cooks a breadfruit. To describe this thing...its quite heavy with a stout stalk and very firm, lightly dappled skin. Cooking involves intensive oven time or boiling. Being as it was another 90 degree something day I went with boiling in the hopes it would cook faster. Once it was tender I brought it out and skinned it. Now I'll preface my next descriptions with the fact that this truly did end up tasting delicious (I made a bacon chowder out of it). But... to begin with I had foam. That's what boiled bread fruit flesh looks like, tastes like and feels like. Dense, dense foam. The type of foam they make couches out of. And unlike raw potatoes (which I enjoy munching on) breadfruit had no crunch, no flavor and it was DENSE, with the amazing property of being light as a feather. Do chemists know about this stuff? I continued dicing up the mess while seriously considering dropping the lot in the trash and just enjoying my bacon. But I mustered up my sense of adventure and threw all the ingredients together. The result was a very dense, very, very filling tasty meal. Will breadfruit be on my menu again though? I may just stick with potatoes.