Grenadian Cuisine - Bluggoe

Earlier this week, on the same night that we had callaloo soup, we also enjoyed some bluggoe. I haven't been able to find a great deal online about bluggoe, but it is a variety of plantains. It is apparently such a staple in Grenada that it is often referred to as "provision." The photo below shows a basket of fruit (those are grapefruit and oranges, not limes), some figs to the left, and bluggoe to the right. (We obviously weren't paying attention at the grocery store and thought we were buying bananas, not figs; our maid Cecilia told us the figs would not ripen sufficiently during our stay to allow us to eat them raw and offered to make us a fig pie; but knowing that several of my children would probably not help me eat the pie I decided to eschew the calories and suggested she take the figs home for herself).


Once again I am indebted to Cecilia for helping me out with Grenadian cooking. She told me the bluggoe would be delicious simply fried in butter with a little salt and pepper. She also demonstrated how to peel and cut one. Her facility with doing so--she peeled and neatly sliced one of the bluggoe in a few seconds, making it look so very easy--made me feel like a clumsy first-time cook when I tried to copy her actions a little later. Bluggoe may look like bananas, but they don't handle like them! Nevertheless, I finally managed to come up with this:

Here's the finished dish. It was delicious--everyone, even the pickiest among us--liked it. It tasted a little like fried potatoes and would be a good potato substitute for any meal.

Tomorrow Cecilia is going to cook a full meal for us right here in our cottage. You can bet I'll have pictures of that for you! If only I could also send some tastes through the world wide web!