country Essentials · 12 foods
Barbados Essentials
A considered first route through Barbados: the foods that carry its everyday habits, celebrations, ingredients, and memory.
Explore all Barbados foods →THE
ESSENTIALS
The complete shortlist
12 foods to know.
Each selection includes the reason it belongs here—so this is a guide, not just a pile of names.
Barbados
Cou-Cou and Flying Fish
The national plate: okra cornmeal turned out of its bowl with fish steamed in tomato gravy.
Bridgetown, Barbados
Flying Fish Cutter
A fried fillet in a salt bread with pepper sauce, bought at a hatch on the Bridgetown waterfront.
Barbados
Bajan Fish Cakes
Fish cakes
Saltfish fritters seasoned with thyme and pepper, sold hot at Bajan rum shops and roadside snack counters.
Barbados
Pudding and Souse
Saturday only: pickled pork with lime and cucumber beside slices of steamed sweet potato pudding.
Barbados
Bajan Macaroni Pie
Macaroni pie
Set firm with egg and mustard so it cuts in squares — soupy versions get judged.
Barbados
Bajan Pepper Sauce
Yellow with mustard rather than red with tomato, and hotter than it looks.
Barbados
Bajan Salt Bread
Salt bread
The floury seam-topped roll every cutter is built on, best bought straight out of the morning oven.
Trinidad and Tobago
Cassava Pone
Grated cassava and coconut baked into a dense, deliberately gluey slab.
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Anguillian Conkie Dumplings
Conkies
Steamed in banana leaf every November, which is when the whole island smells of nutmeg.
Barbados
Falernum
Lime, clove and almond in cane spirit — invented here and now behind bars everywhere.
Barbados
Mount Gay Rum
Mount Gay
Distilling records go back to 1703, which makes it the oldest rum brand still running.
Barbados
Jug-Jug
Guinea corn and pigeon peas with salt meat, made at Christmas and descended from haggis.