Ice Dance

Bus trip down to St Georges today. Part of the coast road just north of St Georges washed out a while back and a new connecting road has been built inland.

Naturally being a new road it doesn't have houses along it, so it is not a productive route for buses that operate like shared hail taxis. The bus therefore took a less 'main' route round the washed out piece of coast road: uphill, round sharp bends, along narrow hill paths but past houses all the way, 

St Georges boasts the island's main spice market (built by Venezuela according to the sign outside). It is not as densely packed as I remember it being in 2019 but there are still plenty of stalls to choose from. The main target of the canny sellers would seem to be American tourists and passengers from the nearby cruise terminal - prices are quoted in USD until you ask for EC$ (Eastern Caribbean Dollars) but even then the prices for little presentation collections of Grenada's spices remain stubbornly high.

It's also a fruit-veg market

Nutmeg wrapped in mace

I was there for pimento, The dried unripe berries of Pimenta Dioica [(L)Merr] are termed Allspice. It is also called Jamaican pepper, Pimenta or Newspice. A native plant from the Caribbean island Jamaica, P. dioica belongs to the family Myrtaceae (ncbi website)

Dreadful confusion was caused by me at the first stall (where the vendor unravelled impressive floor length dreadlocks out of her top knot just as we arrived) when I asked for Allspice. "This" she insisted "is spice" and offered me cinnamon bark.

Spice, it seems, is not a generic term here, and it certainly does not cover chillies or peppercorns - too hot to be spice I was advised. In the end I bought some tamarind off her because we'd dismantled her entire stock looking for an example and not found what I sought.  Tamarind is a stock cupboard ingredient in our house but we only ever have black sticky molasses-like stuff. Even in Antigua that is how it's sold - black sticky slabs. Here they sell the whole pods and you peel off the shell and suck the flesh off the seeds - like those sweets the kids call 'sours'.  She even got Mr B (he of sweet tooth) to eat some.

Like wow.

Taste sensation.

Good with rum, peanuts and plantains.

When I did find pimento it was in silly little packets at tourist prices; quantities I would use in a single dish priced like a local lunch for two (USD10/EC24), so I went bold and said I wanted a BIG bag, gesturing on the large side.

No problem, she waddled off down the aisle of stalls, an exchange in patois with two young women at the end while I stood by looking hopeful, some rummaging in a large cardboard box and voila a BIG bag of pimento. (About 20-30 times the quantity of a small one.)

Now the question: how much?

"35" came the answer.

US or EC?

EC

I'm fairly certain I did a double take.  That's some mark-up on those teaspoon sized ones but I buttoned it.

Done and done.

While in the market I hoovered up some passionfruit, papaya, and okra, and we set off in search of coffee.

Grenada doesn't do coffee. Settle for local orange juice, a view of their Houses of Parliament and some watching of activity by their harbour.

A fishing boat was loading ice. I watched mesmerized for ages and then didn't get a decent video of the coordinated bucket dance from ice chest on truck into ice hold on fishing boat. Settle for this and imagine it going round and round on a loop:

Tunnel access, vehicular and pedestrian between harbour (and government district) and town centre commercial district:

Loads more random photos but I'll save those up for another day.