Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

No matter how much I like breadfruit, I’m not going to repeat the work I did for the last two blogs, so it’s time to eat what the tourists eat. Fortunately, I have friends who are willing to be tourists with me! We had our party celebrating Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on a beautiful Sunday in August. It was a little too hot to eat on Joanna’s lovely patio, so we ate inside. Everything listed below had a delicious Caribbean twist as shown in the recipes:

· Joanie brought coleslaw: https://www.africanbites.com/caribbean-cole-slaw/

· Lydia brought rice and beans: https://www.africanbites.com/caribbean-rice-and-beans/

· Bea brought shrimp and grits with mushrooms replacing the shrimp: https://totallychefs.com/recipes/caribbean-creole-shrimp-and-grits

· Phyllis stopped at Porto’s for potato balls: https://foodisafourletterword.com/recipe/portos-bakery-potato-ball-recipe-papa-rellena/

· I brought red snapper with coconut & pineapple salsa (except I replaced the red snapper with vegan shrimp from Loma Linda Market – that may have been a mistake): https://my.whisk.com/recipes/10701855bab627f4da2a4df13e35996079e

· Gladys brought macaroni and cheese dressed up with jerk seasoning https://www.caribbeangreenliving.com/macaroni-and-cheese-with-jerk-seasoning/

· Laurie brought corn bread: https://tasteandsee.com/caribbean-cornbread-recipe/

· Laurie also brought key lime pie: https://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/133823443/royal-caribbean-cruise-key-lime-pie/

· Keller brought bread pudding: https://www.thespruceeats.com/bread-pudding-pudin-de-pan-2137892

Maybe these recipes would be more authentically Vincentian: https://my.whisk.com/community/176e20a7869f4e4a99a6081ddd92166d. I checked out and watched Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations Collection 6, Part 1, disk 2: Caribbean Island Hopping from the Los Angeles County Library and put together the festival bread that Morgan Freeman & Friends: Caribbean Cooking for a Cause listed as representative of Mustique to be more specific to this particular country.

Speaking of Mustique, one of the islands included in the Grenadines, last year when my book group read Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown, I assumed it would count for the United Kingdom. Little did I know that it would count for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines due to Princess Margaret’s love of Mustique. This video explains more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQBkGSyBxVY

The high life in Saint Vincent in the Grenadines is further shown in The Island Hopping Digital Guide to the Windward Islands, part IV: St. Vincent and the Grenadines by Shephen J. Pavlidis that I found on Hoopla. I enjoyed dreaming about sailing as I looked at charts and pictures, read guidelines for mooring, and considered other things that sailors would want to know.

Because of the filming locations in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, I rewatched the first of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies this week on DisneyPlus (all five of them are available there). When I looked for a video explaining more about their filming locations, I found this one that shows the island where Elizabeth Swann and Captain Jack Sparrow were left behind by the crew of the Black Pearl. What I like most about this video is that it also shows daily life and business in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as people find innovative ways to serve the visitors who sail in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7qWfI7_JOs

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines doesn’t just have stories of those who came in. It also has stories of those who left. I found The Garifuna Journey on Kanopy, which shows an indigenous group that the British exiled from Saint Vincent, and Behind the Face of Winter by H. Nigel Thomas, a novel that mirrors his own story as an immigrant from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Canada. The library didn’t have Thomas’ book, so I ordered it from Amazon.

Let’s finish off with a music video honoring the beauty of these islands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuQZT3gmGnA and a list of the best things to do there: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-things-st-vincent-grenadines/

I would love to go! 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 Vincent and the Grenadines and throughout the world.

Photo credit: Christian Lendl https://unsplash.com/photos/6BpsiQs0dkk