December 12, 2009.
We woke up in Roseau, the capital city of Dominica, on market day. No matter where I am in the world, I am always drawn to markets. Food markets, flea markets, farmers’ markets, foraging, gardens… I prefer to do my shopping outdoors.
Markets are also where the people go. They have a certain energy and life about them that supermarkets lack, although I always hit those up, too. I am curious about what people eat, and since childhood have been mostly unafraid to try new things. However, supermarkets can sometimes paint a skewed picture of a place. They often include food imported from around the world, while outdoor markets tend to be local farmers selling their own produce. And that’s what I’m interested in most.
In Dominica I was on a mission to find a fresh cacao pod to taste. Unfortunately, the market was not the place to go for such things. It was about the everyday foods that people need, and in Dominica it seems that just about everybody has their own cacao tree or knows someone who does.
What I did find were fresh passionfruit, soursop, the first of the best oranges that I would ever have in my life, the first of a diverse range of bananas and plantains and fruit that seemed to sit somewhere in between, nutmeg from someone’s tree, and vibrant, fresh hibiscus flowers aka sorrel. The holiday season is sorrel season. The bright red flower calyces make a bright red drink that can be enjoyed on its own or mixed with rum. I found sorrel for sale just about everywhere in Roseau. Women sat on the side of the road with overflowing sacks, dyeing their fingers red as they pulled the tough calyces from the remaining seedpod. Later, I saw the plants growing both wild and cultivated, and in the years that followed I have tried my hand at growing it myself. I have never been able to get much of a harvest here in Toronto where the season just isn’t quite long enough. The most I have ever been able to achieve were a few immature flower buds just before the hard October frost killed the plants dead. Fortunately, the dried flowers are widely available at West Indian and Latin American food stores and I have even managed to scoop up fresh imported hibiscus calyces in mid-late December. Here’s my old recipe for making sorrel at home. I have since switched to no sugar or sweetener and instead steep with a piece of cinnamon. I find that the cinnamon makes it taste sweet, without the sugar rush.
If you’re from the West Indies or of West Indian descent, you will likely know all about this powdered food flavouring. I have never seen as many iterations of this product as I did in the local supermarkets.
