An Embarrassment of Mangoes (22 page)

“When I drop them back at their boat, the head guy tells me he’ll be coming by with a check to compensate me for my help.” He shudders at the thought. “I told him politely that he
absolutely
didn’t need to bother.” At this point, two Coast Guard boats are tied behind
Receta
, the second having arrived to help the first. “And we’re not telling
anyone
what happened tonight.”

Except the Minister of Rum, of course: You need a good excuse when you’re more than an hour late for a dinner invitation, and being conscripted to aid and abet the Coast Guard in a bust works just fine.

Ed, who’s visited more than one illegal still in the course of his rum research, can be trusted to keep quiet. And, besides, he knows all the local scuttlebutt. Sure, people do occasionally whip up to St. Vincent, where grass is grown, and then buzz back down to Grenada after dark, but it’s no surprise to Ed that nobody got caught tonight. “The local guys would have been warned something was up,” he explains while he fries the kingfish and we sip ’ti punches. “So they wouldn’t have made a run. Besides, they always post somebody on the point with a light to signal, just in case.”

A couple of days later, a smaller Coast Guard boat pulls up to
Receta
in the middle of the day. We hope no one on the beach is watching. The head Coast Guard guy from the other night is on board, just come to say thank you. To our relief, he doesn’t offer up a check. But we get the feeling that for the rest of our stay in Grenada, we’re safe from the Coast Guard inspections that foreign cruising boats are periodically given.

M
ango season is waning. The perfumed piles in the market have shrunk and the price has grown. The real sign, though, is that there are none at all at the Marketing & National Import Board, where the bins reflect what the local growers currently have in abundance. A few weeks ago, one wall was lined with baskets of mangoes: Julies, Ceylons, Calivignys, and Peach mangoes. Now, we console ourselves with the voluptuous avocados that have replaced them.

Back home, food is divorced from the seasons, every fruit and vegetable imported from
somewhere
year-round. Here, we eat what comes ripe, and the reward is the taste. Before this, I don’t think we knew what an avocado should taste like. The bananas have an almost forgotten banana flavor; the silky papayas expose the ones back home as dull imposters; the greens have unexpectedly strong, assertive personalities.

On my most recent trip to Mr. Butters’s, I had again been hoping to get some of his pungent escarole to turn into topping for pasta, but again his escarole beds are picked clean. Instead, I leave with a bunch of callaloo.

Steve watches me dubiously as I chop up the heart-shaped leaves. “We’ve only seen it served as soup,” he points out. Callaloo—the thick green soup is called by the same name as its main ingredient—is ubiquitous throughout the West Indies. Every cook has their own version: some with crab, some with salt pork or beef, some with okra, some with coconut milk, some with evaporated cow’s milk, some without any milk at all.

“It’s a leafy green vegetable, same as escarole—I’m sure it will work just fine on the pasta,” I reply.

While I’m transferring the chopped callaloo from the cutting board to the pan where the garlic is sautéing, I drop a piece on the floor. And just as I would do at home, I pick it up without thinking and pop it in my mouth.

The effect is almost immediate. My throat is on fire, and it’s a worse fire than the one caused by Nimrod’s rum: I’m being poked from the inside out by a million little glass slivers. I gulp water, then beer, to no effect. Steve’s ready to hustle me into the dinghy to go to shore, and a doctor, but behind the pain is a dim recollection. “Check the cruising guide,” I croak.

Our guide for this part of the world includes a few pages about island food at the back—and there it is, read once a long time ago and forgotten: Callaloo should
never
be eaten raw or undercooked. The leaves contain calcium oxalate crystals, which cause “discomfort,” as the book calls it; a bit understated, I’d say, when I feel like I’ve swallowed a fistful of nettles. The effect is temporary, though, the guide goes on to explain, and there is no permanent damage. “To use callaloo as a vegetable, boil it with a little salt for at least 30 minutes.”

I turn up the heat and cook it so thoroughly it becomes a pool of green-brown sludge.

T
he “christophene saltfish cakes” that the market ladies told me how to make are a
much
more successful attempt at using local ingredients than callaloo pasta sauce. “Write the recipe down,” Steve tells me while devouring a plate of the crispy fried cakes. “
Right now
, before you forget what you did.”

He’s been telling me to write a lot of things down lately, as I attempt local dishes and substitute island fruits and vegetables in the ones I cooked back home. I make latkes with grated plantains instead of potatoes, and serve them with mango salsa instead of applesauce. (No apple trees in this part of the world.) I use christophene instead of zucchini in my zucchini bread recipe, and papaya in my banana muffins. The muffins are fruit-sweet and moist and, as a bonus, a lovely color. “Write it down, write it down,
write it down
.” Steve hasn’t exactly been keeping quiet about my galley adventures and the interesting stuff he’s been eating, and sometimes I find myself fielding questions from other cruisers like some culinary advice columnist. Unfortunately, I’m hardly an expert.

Dingis had already given me a lesson on making “regular” saltfish cakes, but the “christophene saltfish cakes” the market ladies had suggested were new to me. “Saltfish” once meant salted cod almost exclusively. For New England and Nova Scotia, the Caribbean was a low-end market, a place to unload their second-rate salted-and-dried cod, where it provided cheap food for the slaves on the sugar plantations. In fact, “West India” became the commercial name for the lowest grade of saltfish. These days, it’s no longer the cheap food it once was, thanks to the decline of the North Atlantic cod fishery, but it’s still a popular ingredient in Caribbean cooking.

“Buy a nice tick piece of it,” Dingis had told me. “Not deh little ones—dey boney.” In Grenada, some locally caught and salted fish—shark, mostly—now shares space on store shelves with a variety of saltfish imported from Europe.

Christophene, meanwhile, had become a staple on
Receta
months back in the Dominican Republic, where it’s called
tayota
. The pale-green squash-like vegetable is available in North American supermarkets—it goes by a variety of names including chayote, chayote squash, vegetable pear, cho-cho, and mirliton (especially in Louisiana)—but I had never really appreciated it until I became a cruiser. It’s the perfect onboard vegetable: cheap, available year-round, and hardy. (It keeps extremely well just slung in a hammock without refrigeration, a real bonus on a cruising boat.) Because of its delicate flavor, christophene is also versatile: It can be sliced raw into salads for crunch (even the almond-like seed in the center makes good eating); boiled, baked, stuffed or sautéed; added to stews, stir fries, and curries; and turned into soup. “Good for deh stomach,” one of the market ladies tells me, patting her ample midsection approvingly. Another cruiser swears it can be used to make a mock apple pie.

But how do I turn it into those christophene saltfish cakes? Just grate some christophene and some onion, the ladies tell me—“maybe carrot too,” one of them interjects—add chopped seasoning pepper, garlic, and sive and thyme. Mix in a little “counter flour”—this is coarse flour, I’ve by now figured out, rather than the more finely ground flour used in baking—and a “tick” of baking powder (which is, I think, a smaller unit of measurement than a “tip”). Then fry them in hot oil.

“And what do I do with the saltfish?” They shake their heads pityingly and laugh: “Dere no saltfish, girl.” Okay, I get it: Christophene saltfish cakes are good for deh budget, too. They’re made with christophene
instead
of saltfish.

Papaya-Banana Muffins

This recipe is a solution to the problem of too much ripe tropical fruit. These muffins have lovely color and flavor, and are nice and moist.

12⁄3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1⁄4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 egg

1⁄3 cup oil

3⁄4 cup sugar

1 cup mashed ripe papaya

1⁄2 cup mashed ripe banana (1 large banana)

1⁄4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 375°F and grease a medium-sized muffin pan or line it with muffin papers.

2. Combine dry ingredients and set aside.

3. Beat egg with oil, sugar, and mashed papaya and banana in a large bowl.

4. Mix in dry ingredients and walnuts (if using). Scoop mixture into prepared muffin pan. Bake in preheated oven for 18–23 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Makes 1 dozen

Tips

• If the papaya is quite ripe, it will yield a lot of liquid when mashed. Drain off this excess liquid before adding the fruit.

• You can make the muffins entirely with papaya if you like; just increase the quantity to 11⁄2 cups. The muffins will have a slightly moister texture and a flatter top.

Christophene Quick Bread

Christophene makes an incredibly moist quick bread. It mixes up in minutes, and is great for snack or teatime.

11⁄2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

11⁄4 teaspoons baking powder

3⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon

1⁄2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

2⁄3 cup vegetable oil

3⁄4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup grated christophene, well drained (about 1 medium christophene)

1⁄2 cup grated carrot (about 1 medium)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease an 81⁄2-by-41⁄2-inch loaf pan.

2. Combine dry ingredients. Set aside.

3. Beat oil and sugar together in a large bowl using a whisk or wooden spoon. Add eggs and beat until batter is creamy. Add vanilla, then grated christophene and carrot. Mix well.

4. Stir dry ingredients into christophene mixture and mix well. Spread in the prepared pan and bake for 50–60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Makes 1 loaf

Stuffed Christophene au Gratin

These are a bit fiddly to make on a boat, since you have to use (and thus wash) two pots and a baking pan—but they make a great meatless dinner.

2–3 large christophenes

2 tablespoons butter or oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1⁄4–1⁄2 hot pepper, seeded and minced (or to taste)

1 stalk celery with leaves, chopped (optional)

1 green onion, chopped

11⁄2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or 1⁄2 teaspoon dried thyme

1 cup grated cheddar cheese