The market

I must admit, I was pretty intimidated by the thought of going to the market. Not only for the reason that I look like a sweet, innocent American who can easily be scammed, but because I would have no idea what I was buying and how to cook it.
Now you may be thinking, Ashley, what's the problem? You've told us they speak English and that the locals are very nice... put two and two together and ask them! You would be correct except for the fact that I find it extreemely difficult to understand what they are saying. Partly because their accent is thick and partly because their dialect is different from what I am anticipating. Case in point: yesterday we went on a tour of the island and the bus driver asked us if we liked "foobaw." Do you:
a. nod and smile
b. ask him to repeat it for clarification (only for him to say it the same incoherent way)
c. act like a complete idiot and ask him what that is
For us on the bus, it took several questions to figure out he was talking about the sport you play by kicking a ball around a field (football=soccer) Anyway my point is that if I went to the market and bought strange items from a toothless old lady who tried to tell me how to cook it, Justin would starve to death.

So you will all be so pleased to know that that will not be his fate. Being the lovable, outgoing, and social person that I am, I boldly struck up a conversation with the school nutritionist who gave a lecture on local fruits during orientation when we saw her on campus. Her name is Mrs. Lambert and one of the first things she told us in her lecture is that she is one of 16 children and two of her brothers have been Prime Minister (of Dominicia, that is). She studied nutrition in England and then returned to Dominica on a personal mission of encouraging young students to eat healthily, locally. AND she totally offered to take us to the market on Saturday and then come back to our apartment and show us how to cook. Score!

In preparation, Justin and I bought a big soup pot, a pyrex casserole dish, and a mixing bowl to add to our measly collection of one pot and one pan. We were excited.

So to market, to market...

In order to find all your items you must arrive at the market early. The alarm went off at 5:50 and we were out the door by 6:15 (that's right, we, Justin CAN wake up that early on a Saturday after all). We waited at the main road for a couple minutes hoping to catch a bus into town, but started walking after not seeing one for several minutes. We walked about 10 minutes before we waved down a flag and rode into town arriving at 6:35. We met up with Mrs. Lambert and began our market adventure.

The market is a collection of wooden tables and pickup trucks along a street that ends on the beach. We started at the far end with a truckload of coconuts and a man with a machete. These aren't your regular coconuts. Instead of brown hairy coconuts, these are larger and green. You cut across the bottom to make an opening for the coconut water to come out. It is funneled into an old water bottle and then cut in half. The meat on the inside it a clear jelly that has a texture similar to avocado. We tried a bite and while it didn't taste like coconut, it was good. We also left a water bottle with him so he could fill it with coconut water while we shopped.

We went from stall to stall buying normal things like bananas, plantains, string beans, tomatoes, spinach, and yam. We found okra and Mrs. Lambert asked if we had had it before. We told her yes, that we slice it and cover it in cornmeal and fry it. The look on her face was so surprised! She cooks it the same way! So we bought some okra to fry.

There is a dried flower called Sorril that is boiled in water with orange peel, cinnamon, clove, and ginger. Mrs. Lambert told us that it is only around in the winter months and is a Christmas-y thing to dring. It reminded me of Jamaica, a juice that you can get in Mexico and Bolivia. We bought the ingredients to make that too.

pumpkin, plantains, root crops, oh my!

We bought what Mrs. Lambert called pumkin but was more like a squash, with a green and white marbled skin and orange meat inside. She introduced us to all the roots that they use here instead of potatoes. There is Cush Cush, Anya, and Dasheen. They all look similar and are boiled and used in soups or mashed.

fried plantains, fried breadfruit, boiled breadfruit

We bought breadnuts that you boil with salt and crack off the shell to get a nut similar to an almond but soft. There is also breadfruit that is round an green but has a white starchy meat inside that is just like a potato.

breadnuts and breadfruit

pumpkin soup and boiling breadfruit

We bought mahi-mahi and yellowfin tuna from the fish stalls. They just cut the fish into steaks with their machetes and dropped them into a plastic bag! I was slightly disgusted. Ok, really grossed out.

By the time we were done shopping I was worn out but it was only 7:45! Our shopping bag from IKEA (thank you, Chris) was loaded with food. Mrs. Lambert had purchased quite a lot herself. We were pretty surprised that she only came with one small bag. She had told us earlier to bring a bag and lots of plastic bags because the vendors didn't always have them. We came prepared. She didn't. We lent her several plastic bags to carry her goods but the handles on them kept breaking. I didn't think we'd make it back to our apartment! We bought the coconut water on our way out. We caught a bus back to Moo Cow Trail and struggled with all her bags down the trail. When we got home we unloaded and started cooking.

We made the sorril drink. We fried plantains. We boiled the breadnuts. We boiled the breadfruit. We boiled the pumkin, We boiled the Dashin, the cush cush, and the anya. We even boileda banana. The pumkin and roots and banana went into the soup. We snacked on breadnuts and started frying the boiled breadfruit. It was just like french fries!

Mrs. Lambert didn't really like our kitchen set up. Before we started the soup she kept asking if we had this or that. We were like, "Noooooooo, thats why we went to the market with you" and "You didn't tell us we needed that." Apparently we should have brought a pressure cooker and a blender with us from the states. Who knew? We also haven't found a good knife, so Justin had to wake up our neighbor upstairs to borrow one. The pan we were frying things in kept sticking. She asked where we had purchased it (a general store called Best Buy). She told it is was a bad buy. We told her how we had had a hard time finding things like good pots and pans and how we were surprised. Everyone has to cook, you'd think they'd be easy to find. Nope.

Besides that, Mrs. Lambert was so nice. She was the biggest help in the market, showing us what vendors to use, and what to look for in the different products. Everything she showed us how to make was pretty good. When we were pretty much done, she left all her groceries with us until her husband could come to pick them up since there was so much. Then we crashed! I was exhausted and completely tired of cooking. Lauren (our neighbor) and her friend Norah came over later to try everything out.

We ate the mahi-mahi last night (see it in the marinade in the attached pictures) with mashed breadfruit and sauteed spinach. Our first completely homemade Dominican meal!

Hope all this talk about food didn't make you too hungry. If it did, I suggest frying up some breadfruit and a nice bowl of pumpkin soup... hmmm.... that's what I'm going to do.

Love y'all,
Ashley