Bones photographed this fisherman and his catch in Nevis
Grocery shopping on a small island can be hit or miss at times. I learned long ago that menus and shopping lists are only rough drafts. Keep your plans flexible until you hit the shops and see what’s on offer. Otherwise, disappointment looms. Instead of planning for tagliatelle with a pork and mushroom ragu, try for pasta with meat sauce. You’re certain to find at least one type of pasta and meat of some description. The mushrooms may well be rotten, so better not pin your hopes there or you’ll be sorry.
That being said, the food in the shops here today is about a thousand times better than when I moved down seventeen years ago. The local farmers are growing and selling more fruits and vegetables. The BVI organic chicken is usually good and the pork is fantastic. Then there’s the just-caught conch, lobster, snapper, pot fish, mahi mahi, wahoo, tuna. Still, thank goodness for Tropical Shipping.
Now these are fresh lobsters
Yes, it does add a few shoe sizes to our collective global footprint. But to all you militant locavores sitting out there in air-conditioned comfort, try living where I live for a while. You’d learn to appreciate asparagus from Mexico and strawberries from Chile. Out of season means little when there are no seasons. And look at it this way. We’re helping to put dinner on the tables of a lot of struggling farm workers who don’t have the luxury of turning up their noses at good food. Okay, mini-rant over.
Last week I had a little 90’s grocery shopping flashback when we stayed over on Virgin Gorda for my brother’s wedding. I thought a simple barbecue by the beach would be nice…grilled chicken and steak, twice baked potatoes, salad. It sounded simple to me anyway. The potatoes were no problem. Check. I had a little difficulty with the salad but managed to find an iceberg lettuce, a carton of cherry tomatoes, a can of chickpeas and some scallions. Salad, check. I even found a baguette.
Visit Moviene's Garden of Eden for fresh local produce
The meat was where I hit a snag. The “fresh” steaks had been packed five days earlier and were kind of gray. So, no steak. That’s okay, chicken would do just fine. I located the chicken in the deep freeze and found I had two choices: ten pound bags of chicken wings or chicken feet. There was no way six of us could eat ten pounds of wings. And I just couldn’t see serving grilled chicken feet to my almost sister-in-law and her mother. I finally managed to rustle up several non-scary pork chops, some Italian sausages and a few frozen red snapper. Those would go nicely with the spicy tomato choka I brought over from Tortola.
Naturally, there was only a tiny toaster oven in Bragg and Erin’s sweet honeymoon villa so we had to nix the twice-baked potatoes. No worries, the stove worked beautifully and we all enjoyed our mixed grill, cheesy mashed potatoes and retro iceberg salad at a teak table by the surf. Hunger may be the best sauce but true love makes a mighty fine marinade. Lashings of red wine don’t hurt either.
Nice dining room, eh?
Then there are those times when the stars align and you get a call from a friend just in from a day of fishing with a twenty pound mahi mahi he can’t use. Oh happy day! It had a huge roe sac that I’ve salted and am drying in the sun in an attempt to produce a Caribbean-style bottarga. Bottarga is a speciality of Sicily and Sardegna usually made from the salted, dried roe of the mullet or tuna. Shaved over spaghetti tossed with olive oil and lemon zest, it’s supposed to be amazing. I wouldn’t know and am hoping my bottarga-making experiment works so I can see for myself. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
And the fish itself? Stunning. No recipe here, I just rubbed some mahi mahi filets with a few spoonfuls of Devica’s green seasoning and let them sit in the refrigerator for about an hour. Only fresh seasoning please, the bottled stuff won’t give you the fresh, herbal flavor you want. Bones seared the filets in a little oil in a very hot cast iron skillet for about seven or eight minutes, until just cooked through. The combination of the achingly fresh fish, the bright green seasoning and a screaming hot pan was perfection. Audrey, not always a big fish eater, ate all of hers and some of mine. I love that. Who needs a supermarket anyway?
Fresh mahi mahi with Dede's green seasoning
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I love learning more about your life–and grocery shopping is a VERY important part of life! The fish looks amazing………
Virgin Gorda isn’t that bad – after all, it’s who you know and who has killed what lately! Husband often comes home with a black plastic bag full of fresh meet (yes, that’s how they spell it at Buck’s Supermarket)
Well your husband knows everybody of course. I think maybe I hit Buck’s on a bad day, it was late on a Friday afternoon.
It does sound like the groceries are more of a challenge than I realized as far as planning in advance. Luckily you’re a chef… we watch conditions like this on the reality show cook challenges – “Here’s a goat shank and some mussels, you have a $50 budget for other stuff, GO!”
I’m a cook Ted, not a chef. Chefs are professionals, I’m just a simple home cook. It’s not always that bad and it’s much better than it used to be. But you do have to be creative and think on your feet a lot.
Eating local is indeed noble ideal but unrealistic for some small Caribbean islands many of whom lack the land space to grow all that they need. The island that my dad is from is not only small but the conditions are arid with sandy, salty soil. That mahi mahi is to die for and BTW I get my pine nuts from Tortola when my sister come to visit. No extra carbon footprint since I figure she was making the trip anyway:-) Is conch still plentiful in BVI? It is fast disappearing from Tobago and you have to dive much further out in St Vincent and the Grenadines to find them.
I’d say conch is probably not as plentiful as it used to be but the government has put regulations in place which prohibit gathering of juvenile conch and gathering conch using scuba gear. They also instituted a closed season from August through October. The installation of mooring balls in certain areas has also helped since it’s allowed for the restoration of bottom areas which are home to the conch.
Does your sister visit Tortola or live here? We do get pine nuts in the markets here (and the markets on Tortola are 100 times better than when I first moved here).