Carnival food fair

This week is Carnival and today was the food fair in downtown. It is much like a street fair stateside, food, craft vendors and plenty of people. The farmers had some great produce and a few items I had not seen before. I came home with some fresh vanilla bean from the Dominican Republic, cinnamon (or bark) from Grenada, local kindney mangoes, goat water (mutton stew), beef pate (pronouced pattie I think). There was plenty of other food I wanted to try, but at the high Carribean prices I had to keep my expectations in check (see the $20.00/plate in the picture above!) Most of the booths served their own variations on stewed chicken, beef or mutton with black beans and rice, macaroni and cheese, lobster tails, shrimp and sweet potato stuffing. There were plantains, bananas, johnny-cakes, lots of sweets (candies, jellies and tarts) made from tamarind, coconut and guava. One dish I wanted to try was Kallaloo, a seafood and spinach stew but I was worried (and probably overly so) about the use of reef fish in the stew which carries paralytic toxins...and being pregnant I didn't want to go there.