Hi Everyone,
Whilst on a visit to Berbice last month, I went to Port Mourant Market and there I spotted a shave-ice vendor! It had been decades since I last had shave-ice. With cars honking loudly, I zigzagged my way across to the vendor.
Growing up, shave-ice always seemed to be a treat, while snow cones seemed more readily available. As a young girl, a visit to Stabroek Market would usually entail shave-ice; it was like an oasis amid the sun and hustle and bustle of a Saturday morning. On several occasions if I was sent to the market in the afternoon after school I looked forward to having shave-ice. With the sun in the West, the light would hit the block of clear ice giving it a warm glow; sometimes the sun created a golden line along the edge of the ice. As the vendor moved his arm back and forth, making powerful strokes, tiny flakes of ice would fly into the air where the sun would light them up like golden stars. I think I got more pleasure watching the ice being shaved than consuming it.
A snow cone is wonderful too but so very different from shave-ice, at least to me. With the snow cone, the ice is crushed into tiny bits whereas shave-ice, the kind I remember eating, the ice was shaved razor thin and stacked layer on top of layer. There was a crunch when