Saint Lucia

Raquel was roasting breadfruit on the barbeque and Andrea, Kaitlin, and Matt were swimming in the pool when Sam showed up with Malta, a popular lightly carbonated non-alcoholic drink in Saint Lucia. Sam’s father Gus arrived shortly after, bringing cod fish in vegetables (bacalao). This was the beginning of our Family Night in July which included two Lucians, a German, a Dane, and our family of Jamaicans and those with too many European ancestries to name. After the failed breadfruit scavenger hunt for Saint Kitts and Nevis, I had ordered breadfruit online to make sure our meal for Saint Lucia would be complete: https://tropicalfruitbox.com/collections/all-tropical-exotic-fruit-boxes-products

Gus handed a flag and large photographs of the Pitons to Raquel to hang in the gazebo, then started a cooking demonstration with the other breadfruit, picking the right size pot, cleaning and cutting the breadfruit in wedges, and tucking banana leaves around and over them before he started them to boil. By that time, Sonia, Anne Barit, and Gunter were there and Gus showed us how to make johnnycakes (bakes) and he boiled the plantains that I brought. I made a papaya salad (not that it was Lucian, but I had found a huge ripe papaya at the market on the corner of Redlands Boulevard and Mountain View and wanted to try this recipe: https://www.mrishtanna.com/ripe-papaya-salad/). I also had mangos to eat with chili and lime (Raquel had a great chili powder) and I had baked a banana cake that was labeled as being from Saint Lucia. There was some discussion on this claim, since Gus and Sam had never had it before, but since it had bananas and ginger, they decided it was Lucian: http://www.grouprecipes.com/27121/st-lucia-banana-cake.html

We chatted while we ate, finished the Malta, and sampled multiple kinds of ginger beer. Then Gus gave us some background on Saint Lucia, explained that the shape on the flag represents the Pitons and that the black and white on the flag represent the harmonious relationship between people of different ethnicities. He told us that Saint Lucia has a country music festival and many people love this music that Texans brought to them during World War II. It was a fun night with delicious food and lots of laughter. The group agreed to meet again to cook for another country, but in the meantime, here are more Lucian recipes: https://tastestlucia.wordpress.com/recipes/

Saint Lucia had already been called the Helen of the West Indies before Derek Walcott solidified this image in Omeros. Just like the Helen of Greek mythology, Saint Lucia is also a face that launched a thousand ships. French and British navies were mobilized for her and she changed hands fourteen times. I will admit that I wouldn’t have ordered Walcott’s book if I had known that it was an epic poem inspired by Homer’s Iliad. I wouldn’t have read it, but it was the only thing I had on the plane when going to visit Kristen and the wi-fi was out. I’m glad I made it through. I found another chiasm and I notice that those raised in the Caribbean know their classics! As a fun side note, when Walcott adapted Omeros for performance, the Lucian actor Joseph Marcell played a part. You might know him better as Geoffrey from Fresh Prince of Bel Air and you might enjoy some of his best scenes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n5Yr-Pbx80

I enjoyed listening to Lucian music this week, both by the classic Dame Marie Selipha "Sessene" Descartes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRlJBQsav4 and by Saint Lucia’s recent Goodwill Ambassador, Claudia Edward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-WEwqCm4V4

I also enjoyed art by Sir Dunstan St. Omer. This gallery includes his groundbreaking church work representing biblical characters as black and the flag he designed. After seeing the gallery, click around to other parts of this webpage as it has more interesting history from Saint Lucia:

http://www.stluciaoralhistory.org/dunstan-st.-omer-1.html

Yesterday I made sure and watched the Saint Lucia episode of Restaurants on the Edge to finish the blog. It is on Netflix as the last episode of season 1. They showed a version of the Masquerade dance and I found another version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwQcuUF5CyY

If I actually went to Saint Lucia, I would want to do these things: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-things-st-lucia/#more-16570. Maybe I can convince Gus and Sam to be my guides! I look forward to that time when we can travel broadly again. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Saint Lucia and throughout the world.

Photo Credit: Daniel Öberg https://unsplash.com/photos/EAa8xASFq8I