If you look carefully at many of our dishes, all across this region, you will see creativity and invention, the art of making-do. In other words, using what is available, the little there is/was access to. We’ve learnt how to stretch things, extend them in ways that can feed families and individuals, by having enough for today and tomorrow, or breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner. Our ancestors put to use skills, knowledge, and techniques, to ingredients, from whence they came, creating dishes that are now the taste of home for many.
The various versions of rice and peas are a great testament to stretching and making do. Bakes, floats, muffins, fried dumplings, Johnny cakes are another category of food that speaks of creativity. Each country has its own version based on tradition borne out of availability of the type of starch – wheat flour or cornmeal. The addition of grated cassava and mashed breadfruit to these flours, helped to stretch things, making it possible to have more bakes and for them to have heft that kept one filled for a long time. Many years ago, I wrote about the transformation of Barbadian bakes, from a dense flat disk to a light ball of dough with the introduction of baking powder and butter.
Green bananas or figs as they are also called, are one of those ingredients that are entrenched in Caribbean cuisine. The history of bananas in the Caribbean, complete with information about trade wars that saw the decimation of Caribbean banana exports is well documented, so I am not going to repeat it here. Easy to plant and grow, many people have a banana tree somewhere in their yard. Like coconut, there is much of the banana tree that is edible and useful. The long broad leaves are used as wrappers and covers when roasting, baking, and steaming. The spines of the leaves are chopped into long thick strips and arranged as steamer racks. The skins of green bananas are edible, so too are the blossoms and flowers. Whether green or ripe, the fruit is edible and can be prepared in a variety of ways, both sweet and savoury. Green, the bananas are healthier, more versatile and filling. I have no doubt that these are the factors that gave rise to the use of green bananas in our everyday cuisine.
Green bananas are boiled, and can be eaten as is, or, after boiling, they can be mashed in the style of cou-cou (as is cornmeal and breadfruit); chopped and be made into a salad, in the style of potato salad or they can be pickled (think souse). In Trinidad and Tobago, green bananas are curried. Yep, it is called Fig Talkari. Curried fig. Curried green bananas. Eaten mostly for breakfast or dinner with some hot Sada roti accompanied by a hot beverage of choice, it is utterly delicious and a taste of home. It is easy to see why this is a make-do dish. Don’t know what to cook today or don’t have anything to cook? Get some green bananas.
Another thing about a dish like Fig Talkari, is that it emphasises creativity, and feeding to satisfy, with the use of a saltfish to add flavour. Our ancestors understood the art of flavouring. They understood the impact of taste and how it plays on the mind and taste buds. The addition of ingredients such as salt beef, salt pigtails and snouts, saltfish (and dried shrimp) bring depth of flavour and umami, long before we had a name for it.
In this season of the anniversary of Emancipation, we can think of dishes, like curried green bananas/fig talkari, that were born out of struggle, the need to make the most of what was available. Out of that struggle, wonderful things were made that we enjoy today.
I remember back in the late 80s, when I had first heard of green bananas and saltfish, I was puzzled; why ruin the opportunity to have sweet, ripe bananas, I wondered. Shows how very little I knew and still don’t know.
It’s been more than 30 years since I first ate green bananas. I had it in a salad with saltfish. It was one of the many dishes at the birthday celebration of a friend in St Lucia. I fell in love with green bananas, and since then, they have been part of my diet. While I have had them in the ways I listed, I had never eaten them curried. Therefore, when a friend gave me a hand of green bananas last week, I figured that I would give it a try. And it did not disappoint.
Most of the recipes called for a piece of saltfish for flavouring, however, I opted to use some lovely, dried shrimp I got from Guyana. Oh man, this was lick-your-finger good! Think of curried aloo/potatoes but better. The bananas are meatier and the curry when cooked, the gravy is thick from the natural starch released through the cooking process. While Sada roti is a popular accompaniment for this curry, some hot, fluffy, leafy paratha/oil roti could rival it (lol). The flavour of the dried shrimp in the curry made you think you were eating meat. I shared the curry with 2 of my taste testers, one Barbadian and the other Guyanese. Let me just say that they are making Fig Talkari this weekend. I encourage you to do the same, soon.
I watched several videos of how it is made in Trinidad and Tobago but I applied my own way to making curry so you do the same too. As I said, I used dried shrimp instead of saltfish but use whichever you have and if you don’t like either, still make the curry, it just won’t have the added flavour that those ingredients bring to any dish in which they are included. Another thing I did differently was to cut the green bananas into chunks rather than slices. Most of the videos I watched, the green bananas broke down and melted, leaving lumpy bits of the green bananas. That’s okay if you like it that way. I don’t. I wanted my curry to be meaty/chunky with the gravy.
Peeling green bananas can be a pain as they can turn dark from oxidation so here is how to prepare them.
Start by getting a medium size or large bowl with tap water and squeezing a couple of limes into it or adding a couple splashes of white vinegar and giving it a good whirl. With this you are creating an acidulated water bath. As you peel and cut up the green bananas, drop them into the acidulated water; they will maintain their natural colour. When you are done, drain and rinse and drain again then proceed to make the curry.
Now, here is an easy way to peel the green bananas. Just as you would with a green plantain, make long incisions along the skin of the green banana from the top to the bottom. However, repeat this action at least 4 places around the banana, then peel off one section at a time. You can also cut the bananas into very large pieces, and remove one section at a time (after making the incisions around the banana).
Cook the curry in the way you would normally cook your curry. If using the saltfish or dried shrimp, prep them (de-salt, rehydrate) as you usually would. With this curry, these ingredients are only for seasoning flavour so you don’t need to add a lot. Once you cook the masala-herb paste, add the seafood, let it cook for 2 – 3 minutes, then add the green bananas and continue as you would. Add enough water to cook the curry and leave enough gravy that will thicken as the curry cooks. No need to mash the bananas. The curry thickens even more as it cools. Try it.
Cynthia
