Hi Everyone, When you eat a fried pork chop, you can’t help feeling naughty. But lawd, it nice, and sweet fuh days!
On Friday and Saturday evenings in various places around Barbados, you can find roadside stalls, rum shops and other eateries selling fried pork chops, among other weekend-only dishes. It is a very popular weekend treat that is almost never made at home. It’s a street food.
I had eaten pork in many forms before arriving in Bim – curried, stewed, roasted, barbequed, grilled, jerked, pan-seared, pickled, and dry cured but never fried. I was introduced to fried pork chops one Friday night as friends gave me the lay of the land, and as a way of familiarizing me with all things Bajan.
It was early in the night, around 7. We parked the car and walked across the street (Tweedside road) to join a line. The smell of fried food filled the evening air. I was suddenly very hungry. The line of people leading to Freddy’s stretched along the pavement. Freddy’s is one of those roadside eateries that is an extension outside of the home. It consists of counters with adequate workspace that includes a sink, refrigerator, drinks cooler and a tabletop stove. It is not a place to sit and dine. You buy your food and take it away. The set up was in such a way that you can see the food as it was prepped and cooked. The sign on Freddy’s indicated clearly and simply what is sold – pork, chicken and chips.
People stood patiently in line, some silent while others engaged in light banter. At one time the line moved quickly and then things slowed down. I was to learn later that the first batch of pork chops had sold out and they were now cooking another batch. The waiting seemed to faze no one. This was normal given the popularity of Freddy’s pork chops. Soon the line started to move again. All the while as I stood in line I felt a little uneasy and engaged in a conversation in my mind – was it necessary to fry the pork chops? Won’t it be too much fat to actually fry pork? Pork is already fatty meat, why fry it? I was beginning to think that I would order the fried chicken, but my friends would have none of it, they brought me there specifically for the pork chops. I must taste it. I must experience it. I decided that I would not order fries because it would be too much fried food to take it in at one time.
As we inched closer to the counter I got a clear view of the pork chops as they were lifted out of the large heavy pans, drained to remove the excess oil and then quickly packaged to be given to waiting, outstretched hands. A friend ordered for us and one by one we collected our Styrofoam box of fried pork chops sans chips/fries. Seems everyone wanted to concentrate on the pork chops. We drove home and hurriedly opened our containers. Inside each container was a large, meaty, beautifully browned fried pork chop. All thoughts of fat content were immediately banished as I stuck my fork into the fried pork chop, cut off a piece with the knife and placed it in my mouth. The meat was flavourful and had a good bite to it. The meat was kept moist from the breading; it is exactly what is meant to happen when something is doubled breaded and fried. I had opted for a bone-in pork chop, so when I was done eating the meat, I saved the best for last by downing the cutlery, picking up the bone with my hands and gnawing at it.
I must confess that I have never gone back to Freddy’s. The guilt of eating fried pork chops is something that I’d rather not have to deal with (never mind all the other equally or more calorie-laden things I must have eaten over the years). I’ve been to many other places where I have bought food, and fried pork chops would be there, beckoning me, but I have resisted, until a couple months ago. Here is what happened.
A friend and I went to have lunch at one of the home-extended eateries, Marshall’s. At Marshall’s you can dine-in. I decided to skip the special that day and ordered the pork chop with cornmeal cou-cou. Now, the menu did not indicate how the pork chop was prepared so I assumed that it would most likely be baked. My food arrived, and framing one side of the plate was a fried bone-in pork chop. You know, somehow I was not surprised, I did not have second thoughts nor did I feel guilty. I picked up my knife and fork and tucked right it. And it was good! I enjoyed it so much that two weeks later, I went back again to Marshall’s and I had a pork chop.
As I said in the beginning, fried pork chops are very rarely cooked at home; it is a Bajan street food, and one to be enjoyed as a treat. There are certain things we all do not make at home, for a variety of reasons – the skill involved in certain preparations, the cost, the time and effort, and the health factor associated with the preparation of some dishes. And the truth is that there are some things that are best enjoyed when made by others. For me a fried pork chop is one such thing.
Here come the clichés. Life is short. We have one life to live. Eating a fried pork chop every now and then is not going to automatically kill you. Live a little.
Cynthia
Cynthia@tasteslikehome.org
www.tasteslikehome.org
