#12 - The Bahamas

Well, this was our first real disaster. Not because of taste, but because of our ability to actually produce the meal! The plan was to make Crack Conch, as conch makes up 70% of the seafood eaten on the islands. But, as expected, we couldn't source conch on Vancouver Island in February. The substitution would be lobster, but the cost of the same volume of lobster on Vancouver Island made it cost prohibitive. So, we decided to try a grouper dish. But again, grouper isn't something easily sourced on Vancouver Island. In the end, we cooked tilapia in the most Bahamian way we could find. We did have it with Peas & Rice and Bahamian Johnny Bread, so that helped make it a bit more legit!

The Johnny Bread was so so so good. I only made half the recipe, which was probably a smart choice as there's a good chance I could eat the whole thing! It's similar to corn bread, but with a different texture.

Peas & rice seems to be a pretty standard side dish throughout the Caribbean (although we learned that The Bahamas is not actually in the Caribbean!) It's essentially pigeon peas cooked with rice in a tomato sauce. It was pretty tasty - and again Ruth was happy to be eating anything rice based!

Overall, while it would have been nice to try conch (we've only ever eaten it raw in Grand Turk), our tilapia with peas & rice was a reasonable facsimile of what I imagine they would eat in The Bahamas.

We're off to the Middle East next - Bahrain!