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.