Barbados

Barbados food came to us pop-up style in the form of Street Feast London, a street food market in Dalston. Result. After our difficulties with the early Bs, it felt like karma. Apart from the rain. Once you’ve tried street food in English April, you kind of get why the most authentic street foods come from far better climates.

Anyway.

Street Feast London is a food market that comes to East London in what I’m sure used to be Spring / Summer. If the weather was anything other than torrential rain, it would be a pretty awesome Friday night. There are loads of different stalls (from English cup-cakes to Mac-and-cheese via Jerk Chicken and sherbet) enclosing a relatively large half-tented, half-open-air area opposite Haggerston station. The music is loud, the smells are intense, and the smokey atmosphere hits the back of your throat in a surprisingly pleasant way. It’s a great place to try out new foods and, possibly, get a more authentic take on them. Luckily for us, the 2013 line-up includes Barbadian.

The only downside of street cooking is that you’re kind of limited as to what’s on offer. In this case, there was only fish. In a few variations. While Seamus and I were fine with this, it wasn’t great for the vegetarian friend we’d dragged along and I hope that vegetarians are better catered for in the country – so far, it seems that a lot of the cuisines we’ve tried seemed to hinge on some type of fish or meat. Fortunately, a neighbouring van was dishing out mac-and-cheese, so she happily tucked into that while Seamus and I sampled Bajan fishcakes with salsa, and a king scallop and langoustine salad.

The most surprising thing about Bajan cuisine was the heat of the spices. The food was prepared with freshly ground herbs and spices and there was an unexpected kick to the food and, particularly the deliciously hot fishcakes. This certainly took the chill out of the London air though I don’t totally understand what it would offer the natives. Perhaps the sharp and fruity salsa was meant to temper the heat. The salad was surprisingly topped with melon and the scallop was one of the juiciest I’ve ever had. The langoustine was good but basically just a langoustine.

Here’s a map of the very tiny Barbados – it just looks like a lone kidney bean in the ones we normally use.

And here’s the national anthem with some pretty pictures and some pretty nifty slide transitions:

Map image: By TUBS [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons