Whether it has been by planes, trains, automobiles or boats, I like
to fancy myself a well-traveled woman. My journeys have taken me to three of
the seven continents where I’ve explored such far-flung places as Dubai, The
Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Italy, points far and wide throughout the
Caribbean and more. I’ve even been known on occasion to indulge in staycations
of the mind, courtesy of my HoMedics SoundSpa machine, where at the press of a
button I am instantly soothed by the
sounds of the rainforest, ocean, a thunderstorm, a summer night, rain or a
waterfall.
The
wanderlust within has also unearthed the gourmand within and, as such, food has
been a major component of my travels. Entire chickens have fallen prey to my
voracious appetite. I’ve pressed my lips to ostrich steak in Johannesburg and
lived to tell the tale. And nowhere else in the world would I be able to find a
better hand tossed thin crust quattro formaggi pizza than in Venice, Italy.
The past
ten years has seen me flying down to Jamaica for my own brand of Caribbean
flair. Yeah mon. Everything about the island excites me, including the cuisine.
No one—and I mean no one—makes jerk
chicken the way that a Jamaican can. Period. The national dish, ackee and saltfish, is an acquired taste and one which, if the ackee is not prepared
properly, can be hazardous to your health! And I won’t even get into the number
of cases of Red Stripe beer [NOTE: You must be of legal drinking age to enter this site] I’ve no doubt consumed over the years. Yet for as
many times as I’ve been to Jamaica, there was one dish that I always managed to
avoid . . . until last week: Callaloo.
Callaloo
is a dish similar to spinach and, as I have come to find out through a bit of
internet research, can be made with a variety of leafy plants with starchy
edible roots, including water spinach and taro. A recipe with its origins
steeped in West Africa and brought to the Caribbean by slaves and emigrants, it
is now widely eaten all over the Caribbean. I can now be counted among the many
who love and eat callaloo.
I first tried
callaloo compliments of Coyaba Beach Resort’s Vineyard Restaurant during
breakfast on our first full day in Montego Bay a little over a week ago (July
24th). Okay, while not necessarily complimentary‒it came with a
hefty $17 price tag as a topping on a Jamaican version of a Spanish omelet‒it
was nonetheless a welcome surprise, especially given that, for reasons unknown
even to myself, I had avoided callaloo like it was the embodiment of Mad Cow
Disease in vegetable form. Hell, I can’t even make that claim with a clear
conscience because I didn’t even know what callaloo was.
So there,
atop my Spanish omelet, sat a tiny mound of green flecked with red (tomatoes) throughout. The
way The Vineyard prepared it, it resembled chopped spinach that had been sautéed
to within an inch of its leafy life. It conjured up such a horrific déjà vu moment of
one of the most pathetic attempts at creamed spinach that ever assaulted my
mouth that I nearly took my knife and scraped the miniscule bundle off the egg mash-up, discarded it to the side
of the plate and the joys of callaloo would have once again been lost on my
dining sensibilities. Instead, I boldly stuck my fork in the middle of the
greenery, loaded up a heaping amount‒which was nearly all of it‒and brought the
stainless steel utensil to my lips for the first of what I soon hoped would be
many wonderful encounters with this lovely vegetable dish.
With a
savory punch that invaded my mouth like a marauding storm trooper, the callaloo immediately
took command of my taste buds and refused to relent until the last vestiges
were a distant memory. The juicy lusciousness is what I recall fondly, for in
that moistness, along with the happy-mouth-syndrome mélange of seasonings (I discerned the flavors of onion, garlic, thyme and pepper), was
the secret to the wonderful flavors of this callaloo as it was prepared.
 |
| Some of the wonderful seasonings in callaloo . . . |
I regret that I did not think to snap a photo of it. Then at least, although it would linger but soon fade from my memory, I would have a picture to remind me of the torrid affair that we shared for those brief seconds that it took me to devour it.
Oh
callaloo, how I do so love you.
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