October 15, 2009

Callaloo who?

"Well, maybe," Roy conceded. "But if you can't get the real thing, you make it with spinach. You put in coconut milk: you grate the flesh of the coconut fine and you squeeze it and the moisture come out. You also put in a whole green pepper--it don't be hot unless you burst it--thyme, chive, garlic, onion. Normally you put in blue crab; others put in pickled pig tails. You cook it and you bring out a swizzle stick and you swizzle it until the bush melt down into a thick sauce like a tomato sauce. That's the old-time way; now we put it in a blender. Pour it on stewfish--kingfish, carite fish: mm-hmm. You also eat it with yam, sweet potato. Dumpling."

Chuck said to Vinay, "He's not talking about Chinese dumplings."

"Our dumpling different," Roy said. "Chinese dumpling soft. We make our dumpling stiff."

"Callaloo," Chuck said wistfully.
--Netherland, Joseph O'Neill
Callaloo is a Caribbean soup made with the spinach-like leaves of a tropical plant by the same name. Everything in it sounds good except for the coconut milk. I found a recipe without coconut milk in it though. Perhaps I will try my hand at making it. I do have a bag of frozen spinach...

I don't know about the concept of a stiff dumpling though. I think I prefer my dumplings nice and soft, like a plump, warm bosom. Haha. Maybe not the best comparison, but you know what I mean. Something like this:

P.S. By the way, "It don't be hot unless you burst it"?? Best quotation ever. This logic also applies to soup dumplings straight out of the steamer, I believe.

1 comment:

penguin said...

plump bossom?! haha. btw nice pictures! do you take them yourself!?