![]() The next morning, I’ve booked a taxi to take me to the less-trampled parts of the island, but a fish market is my first stop. I grab a plate piled high with flying fish, rice and peas, macaroni pie and salad - it’s a mammoth feed, not fancy but filling in true Bajan style. Lights twinkle at the stalls along the waterfront, music thumps and people mill around and play dominoes at rustic tables. That night, I head to one of the biggest, in Oistins on the southwest coast. ![]() Mahi-mahi, tuna, marlin, swordfish and flying fish are tossed on barbecues, the beer flows and the weekend begins. Unauthorized use is prohibited.įish is also the focus each weekend when normally sleepy fishing villages swell with locals and visitors for legendary Friday ‘fish fries’. They deliver on punchy spice and my eyes soon water from the heat. We eat them with a pepper sauce so hot it can cause your eyes to bleed,” says Paulette. We eat fish cakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “Fish cakes are number-one on the island, hands down. We join a queue at the popular Hot Legendary Fish Cakes food truck, a scruffy orange trailer dishing up battered balls of salt cod with a Bajan twist. “Chicken is the thing we eat most, pork is the thing we like most - fish is just there.” ![]() “You’re not eating like a Bajan unless you’re eating pork - with starchy root vegetables,” Paulette says. Perching on stools on the balcony, we devour a mound of well-seasoned pork, marinated overnight in turmeric, paprika and scotch bonnet peppers, with pickled cucumber and cassava. ![]() Our first stop, Tim’s Restaurant, is a casual joint above a pawnshop. Other interesting facts I pick up: the grapefruit originated here and many Bajans like to dip their fruit in the sea for a salty kick - as homegrown superstar Rihanna recently demonstrated. It was the Portuguese who bequeathed a love of salt cod and named the island ‘Os Barbados’ (‘bearded men’) after its shaggy fig trees. It’s a low-key little capital, with pastel-painted warehouses lining the waterfront. It was the Dutch and not the British who introduced sugarcane in 1639 (the ‘white gold’ used to make rum), I learn as we zigzag through Bridgetown’s ramshackle streets. As such, it was the first landfall for some of the ships from the African continent and became a British colony during the 17th century, only gaining full independence in 1966. Surrounded by the North Atlantic, it’s 99 miles east of the Caribbean Sea. Roughly triangular in shape, the 166sq mile island isn’t technically Caribbean. It’s a celebration of the island’s increasingly innovative modern food and drink scene, but I’m squeezing in a grassroots food tour to get an insight into Barbados’s culinary heritage. There are cooking demos too, with local chefs exercising very un-Bajan portion control to dish up mercifully bite-size, refined versions of traditional dishes. The festival is a mash-up of rum-fuelled street parties, sunrise beach events, rum distillery tours and tastings, plus cocktail demonstrations. Sleep isn’t an option, however, as I’m here during the annual Barbados Food and Rum Festival and, as well as knowing how to eat, Bajans know how to throw a party. “Eating the way we do in this heat, you start to feel heavy and slow. “Bajans love their food,” says Paulette laughing. With Paulette, from Lickrish Food Tours, as our guide we’re about to embark on a walk, stopping at restaurants, markets, food trucks and more on a three-hour culinary marathon. We don’t stop until our waistlines stretch,” says Paulette de Gannes to the group of us standing in Bridgetown’s Independence Square. This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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