Eating Like the Locals

The last of our Mexican produce is running out—we still have cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes and apples (and even one tomato) but anything green and leafy is long gone.

Green and leafy isn’t a huge part of the culture here but for about $4.50 each I’ve been buying huge lovely lettuce, and $2.50 got me a big bunch of long green beans. The true bounty here though is the fruit.

mangos

 We can buy breadfruit, bananas, pamplemousse and mangoes--but the traditional way to get them is to forage in the jungle and collect them ourselves (or get gifted them). There really is nothing quite like eating a starfruit fresh from the tree (once you’ve knocked the ants off), or trying to figure out how to get that breadfruit, right there.

just one variety of breadfruit

manioc and roasted breadfruit

 Breadfruit, for the uninitiated, is starchy like a potato, but slightly nutty in flavour. It can be eaten raw, or fermented, or roasted, or mashed, or dried and used as flour. And the leaves are used for cooking while the sticky latex sap was used to caulk canoes. My favourite way to eat it is to bake it like French fries—brushes with oil and dusted with spices then baked at 400 for 30 minutes it comes out crispy with a soft centre and makes a great side dish. I’m guessing with gravy and cheese I could call it Marquesan poutine.