1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (172 page)

Where:
In Key West, FL
, Conch Republic Seafood Company, tel 305-294-4403,
conchrepublicseafood.com
; The Conch Shack, tel 305-295-9494,
myconchshack.com
; Schooner Wharf Bar, tel 305-292-3302,
schoonerwharf.com
.
Mail order:
For conch, Charleston Seafood, tel 888-609-3474,
charlestonseafood.com
; Giovanni’s Fish Market, tel 888-463-2056,
giovannisfishmarket.com
; for conch chowder, Islamorada Fish Company and Market, tel 800-258-2559,
ifcstonecrab.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons
by Jessica B. Harris (1989);
The Sugar Reef Caribbean Cookbook
by Devra Dedeaux (1991);
Zarela’s Veracruz
by Zarela Martinez with Anne Mendelson (2004);
foodnetwork.com
(search bahamian conch chowder).

The piña coladas we most often encounter in the U.S. are watery, overly sweet concoctions based on canned or frozen pineapple and coconut concentrate. But made with fresh ingredients, as it is throughout the Caribbean, the piña colada is an elegant, luxurious, and cooling mix of the tart sunniness of pineapple and the sweet creaminess of coconut, usually fortified with a generous dose of rum. As such, it is eminently worthy of summer-afternoon parties or island-themed brunches. In some of our own cities, especially New York, alcohol-free piña coladas have become the drink of choice with hot dogs.

Serves 4 with ice cubes, 3 without

2½ cups grated fresh coconut

2½ cups boiling water

3 cups cored and chopped fresh pineapple

2½ tablespoons sugar, or more to taste

1 ounce dark rum per serving (optional)

Ice cubes (optional), for serving

Thin slices of peeled fresh ginger (optional), for garnish

Fresh mint sprigs (optional), for garnish

Thin lime wedges (optional), for garnish

1.
Place the grated coconut in a heatproof bowl and add the boiling water. Let stand at room temperature for about 1 hour.

2.
Line a strainer with a double thickness of cheesecloth and strain the coconut water into a bowl. Let the strainer stand over the bowl for about 10 minutes, then gather the cheesecloth together to form a sack and gradually squeeze all of the remaining liquid into the bowl. Discard the coconut solids. You should have about 2½
cups of coconut milk; refrigerate it, covered, until chilled, about 1 hour. (Coconut milk will last in the fridge for 3 days.)

3.
Place the pineapple, sugar, and chilled coconut milk in a blender and puree until smooth, about 2 minutes, allowing perhaps just the finest flecks of pineapple to remain. Taste and add more sugar if necessary. Refrigerate the piña colada mixture for about 1 hour.

4.
When ready to serve, stir before pouring. If you use rum, pour 1 ounce of dark rum into each of 3 tall 10-ounce tumblers (or 4 tumblers if using ice cubes). Add 3 or 4 ice cubes, if desired. Pour the chilled piña colada mixture into the tumblers and stir briefly. If desired, garnish each piña colada with a slice of ginger, a sprig of mint, or a lime wedge.

Where:
In Key West, FL
, Schooner Wharf Bar, tel 305-292-3302,
schoonerwharf.com
;
in New York
, Papaya King at multiple locations,
papayaking.com
.
Mail order:
For coconut, Melissa’s Produce, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
.
Further information and recipes:
A Taste of Puerto Rico
by Yvonne Ortiz (1997);
cookstr.com
(search piña colada).
Tip:
If the piña coladas are to be served with straws, it will be necessary to strain the blended drink to remove all of the pineapple solids, which is really too bad. Better to sip the piña coladas without straws and maintain the texture.

The big, green, oval soursop, bristling with spiny prickles, suggests a fruity grenade as it hangs from the branches of the tropical evergreen
Annona muricata
, which thrives throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and parts of southeast Asia. A first cousin to the cherimoya and the custard apple, soursop (known in Latin American countries as
guanábana
) has crackly, papery skin that lightens from dark green to a yellowish citrine as it ripens, and mouth-puckeringly sour white flesh that suggests a mildly fermented blend of lemon and pineapple. It is always picked before fully ripe to avoid bruising, but once it’s ready to eat, the juicy soursop can be enjoyed raw, spooned right out of its shell. (Its large, shiny black seeds are toxic but, fortunately, relatively few in number.)

On its own, soursop is said to have many valuable nutritional benefits, among them large amounts of vitamins B and C and calcium. Mostly, though, the fruit is prized for the winey freshness it imparts to candy and desserts.

In Jamaica and the Bahamas, the pulverized pulp, strained of fibers, is blended with condensed milk and frozen into simple and pleasing ice creams and sherbets.

In Brazil and Puerto Rico, it figures in drinks such as
champola de guanábana
, for which the snowy fruit is whipped with milk and sugar, chilled, and served over ice cubes with a sprinkling of freshly grated nutmeg. It’s a light and refreshing sort of a milkshake that is a traditional after-school snack for children. A generous addition of rum, also traditional, transforms it into a decidedly grown-up treat.

Mail order:
amazon.com (search fresh soursop fruit; soursop exotic tropical juice);
alibaba.com
(search soursop).
Further information and recipes:
A Taste of Puerto Rico
by Yvonne Ortiz (1997);
The Oxford Companion to Food
by Alan Davidson (1999);
epicurious.com
(search guanabana sherbet; guanabana sorbet).

A West Indies native, the plump, round, tropical star apple (
Chrysophyllum cainito
) is beguiling to behold, with an exterior hue that varies from bronzed purple to green, sometimes with a warm coppery tone. Cut in half, the fruit reveals the colorful, star-shaped pattern for which it is named. That pattern is hidden beneath latex-rich skin and a tough rind, so peeling the fruit takes effort, and the eater must carefully separate the exterior from the pulp. But the star apple’s flesh is worth getting at. Mild, custardy, and sweetly juicy, it’s often described as tasting like a cross between an apple and a plum.

In the Caribbean, especially in Jamaica where the fruit thrives, the star apple finds its way into juices, desserts, and salads. “Matrimony,” a Jamaican specialty, is an especially rich, sweet-tart medley of star apples, oranges, condensed milk, and nutmeg. But the star apple doesn’t require an arranged marriage, as it is perfectly delicious on its own, well chilled and scooped out of its shell with a spoon.

Star apples can be found in Latin American, Caribbean, and South Asian markets from late winter to early spring. The lovely shade tree is not widely planted in the U.S.; consequently the fruit is hard to find.

Mail order:
In season, Local Harvest,
localharvest.com
(click Shop and search star apple).
Tip:
When selecting star apples, look for fruit with slightly wrinkled skin that is soft to the touch. To show off the fruit’s interior, cut into a star apple horizontally, never from the stem.

The flavorful Haitian side dish.

An everyday culinary staple the world over, rice can also take on elegant guises, and not only in the form of Italian risotto (see
listing
) or Middle Eastern pilaf (see
listing
). One of the most interesting, and inexplicably overlooked, is Haiti’s
djon-djon rice—
riz djon-djon
in French and
diri ak djon-djon
in Haitian Creole.

Djon-djon refers to the tiny black mushrooms that are said to grow exclusively in Haiti, most plentifully in the north; they give riz djon-djon its burnished, silvery-brown color and its smoky, earthy flavor. Their caps are the only part added to the rice; the tough but full-flavored stems are simmered separately, and the strained cooking liquid is used to cook the rice, adding richness and a deeper patina.

The dish begins with a flavoring base of diced salt pork, fried until crisp and then added to sautéed green peppers, scallions, and garlic. For an extra zap of flavor, many add tiny dicings of fiery Scotch bonnet peppers. Raw, long-grain white rice is then stirred in, along with the mushrooms and their cooking liquid, plus seasonings including thyme and mace. When the rice is tender, it is tossed with a fork and served steaming hot and fragrant, sometimes as a side dish, but more usually a main course, bolstered with bits of cooked poultry, meat, or fish.

As Haitian immigrants have settled in various cities of the United States, dried djon-djon mushrooms can now be found in some stateside groceries. If they cannot, dried European mushrooms such as porcinis are fair substitutes. But the smoky dicings of salt pork are nonnegotiable.

Mail order:
For dried djon-djon mushrooms, Sam’s Caribbean, tel 877-846-7267,
sams247.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons
by Jessica B. Harris (1989);
A Taste of Haiti
by Mirta Yurnet-Thomas and Jay H. Moscowitz (2004);
haitiancooking.com
(search black mushroom rice).

In Jamaica, eating ackee can mean fruit and fish for breakfast.

When Harry Belafonte performed the song “Jamaica Farewell” in a legendary 1959 concert at Carnegie Hall, he told the audience that as a child in the West Indies, he often swam off the docks with the local boys and heard it being sung by sailors as they shipped out. One of its lines memorably mentions rice made with ackee, the West African tropical fruit
Blighia sapida
, introduced to Jamaica in the eighteenth century and now cultivated all over the island. The scientific name honors Captain William Bligh, who brought the fruit from Jamaica to England in 1793.