I guess it had to happen at some point.  We’d hit our fifteenth country and managed to clean our plates every time.  What events conspired to lead me to toss my overstuffed foil container of Bajan leftovers into the trash before I even entered my apartment?  Read on, friend. I’ll explain.

A fifteen-minute bus ride from Kensington left the Nomad crew at the corner of Flatbush Ave. and Empire Blvd. on the east side of Prospect Park, still a good fifteen-minute walk from either of the restaurants the Nomad had scouted.  Anyone looking for a leisurely Saturday afternoon stroll could do a lot better than Empire Blvd. between Flatbush and Nostrand.  Although the desolate trudge past warehouse after garage after warehouse was hardly transporting me to anything approaching my heavily stereotyped image of Barbados, it was doing wonders for my appetite, and I arrived at Culpepper’s (1082 Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn 718- 940-4122) raring for a feast.

We were  encouraged by the mass of people we found waiting patiently for their Saturday suppers, some apparently for over an hour.  To all outward appearances, Culpepper’s is a typical West Indian take-out joint, and I briefly envisioned us eating off our laps as we sat on the curb outside.  Then, as I was still trying to sort out who was waiting for what and where if anywhere a line might have formed, I suddenly found myself following the Nomad and Noquar into a tiny, green, windowless dining room lined with portraits of five of Barbados’ seven prime ministers.  It was uncomfortably quiet inside compared to the bustle on the other side of the door, and completely empty except for one of the friendliest, most helpful servers you could hope for in such an awkward setting.  This strange little room was his domain, and it was clear from the moment we walked in that we would be well taken care of.

Pitcher of mauby

We started with the fish cakes, crispy, doughy little nuggets  served with a sweet, creamy, peppery dipping sauce, and a pitcher of mauby, a homemade soft drink made from tree bark.  The mauby was fantastic and definitely the most interesting beverage we’ve come across so far.  It starts out tasting almost like bubble gum and finishes with a nice earthy bitterness.  After practically inhaling our fish cakes (I don’t think any of us had really eaten much all day), we ended up having to wait what seemed like an eternity for our chicken roti because our order had disappeared somewhere amid the Saturday-afternoon chaos in the kitchen.  We had actually ordered a vegetable roti as well, but it never arrived, which was fortunate because the chicken roti was enormous and probably could have fed the three of us on its own.  For anyone who’s unfamiliar with it, roti is a kind of flatbread often used as a wrap.  It’s common in South and Southeast Asia, parts of eastern Africa, and the Carribean, most likely brought there by the large numbers of Indians who went as indentured servants under the British at the end of the 19th century.  This particular roti might be the best I’ve ever had.  The roti itself had a perfect soft, chewy texture, and the chicken inside was tender and curried in a sweet, mild sauce.  We tore the thing to shreds in a matter of minutes.  We must have looked like a cartoonish blur of knives and forks, and the folks who had been seated at the table next to ours were in vocal awe of our voracity.

Fish Cakes

We had some momentum at this point, and had our entrees come out directly following the roti, I might have fared better than I did.  Unfortunately, there was a twenty or so minute gap that gave the roti more than enough time to settle and the fullness of my belly more than enough time to register with my brain.  My entree ended up coming out a good bit after the other two, so I was able to nibble from the Nomad’s fried flying fish and coo-coo (the Barbadian national dish), and Noquar’s oxtail and coo-coo.  The plan at that point was that they would in turn help me with mine when it finally got there.  Coo-coo, by the way, is Barbados’ national staple made from cornmeal and okra and with a polenta-like texture.  Both coo-coo dishes were excellent, and neither the Nomad nor Noquar were about to hold off or even slow down to wait for my dish. By the time it finally arrived, they were both stuffed and still had a fair amount of their own dishes to take care of.

Chicken Roti

Now I should explain the logic behind my ordering pudding and souse.  It wasn’t that, having lived for a time in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I had any prior affinity for souse, nor was it that our server’s description made it sound particularly appealing.  I ordered it because a) it’s only served on Saturdays, and b) it was Saturday.  Pudding and souse, as it was served to me, was a pile of pig’s ears, pig’s feet, and pork shoulder topped with a spicy chopped celery salad (the souse), accompanied by a mashed sweet potato mix cased in pig’s intestine (not exactly your run-of-the-mill Bill Cosby pudding).  I dove into that plate with everything I had left in me.  I ate at least one pig’s ear, gnawed for a few seconds on a pig’s foot, took care of most of the shoulder, and put a serious dent in the pudding, which I probably would have finished and enjoyed had it not been for that beast of a roti.  In the end, though, there was just too much.  The Nomad did her part and bravely tried to help me, but Noquar, who has inspired me countless times to put crazy things into my mouth, was still visibly shaken by his run in with the Argentinian tripe and blood sausage.  He was a sad, broken shell of the fearless eater I’d seen travel through Asia.

Oxtail and Coo-coo

Once I’d resigned myself to the reality that there was no way I was putting any more pig parts in my mouth, I put the still fairly large pile of souse and the rest of the pudding into a take-home container knowing full well that there was little to no chance of me pulling it out of the fridge the next day for Sunday brunch.  It weighed heavily on my mind as well as in my hand as I carried it home home clinging to some delusion that maybe, if I was just hungry enough, I would give it another look.  In all honesty though, letting go of that bag and hearing it hit the bottom of the trash can might have been the best feeling I had all day.

Pudding and Souse

I should add that after Culpepper’s, we walked up Nostrand a few blocks to Cock’s Bajan Restaurant (806 Nostrand Ave) for dessert, which none of us needed or even particularly wanted, but all managed to somehow eat.  I grabbed a pineapple turnover and the Nomad and Noquar shared a lead pipe, which is a super dense, amaretto-flavored, cylindrical baked thing.  I really have no idea how else to qualify it,  the texture was more like a cookie than a bread or cake, but it was too big to really classify as a cookie.  It was really good though, and could certainly do some damage if used as a weapon.

Tags: Barbados, Brooklyn, Crown Heights

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 28th, 2009 at 9:56 pm and is filed under B, Barbados. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.