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Abandoning Meat by Accident

I never meant to eat 90% vegetarian on my recent travels to the Eastern Caribbean, yet it happened.   

My present diet at home does include a lot of fruits, vegetables and ground provisions, mainly for health reasons, but I’ve been getting sick (pun intended) of the same flavours passing my lips daily.  Shame on me, because I trained as a chef after I left uni and I know all about flavour-profiling.  You see, I was brought up in a household of meat lovers and then I was taught classical French cuisine at Leith’s, where we barely prepared a meal without meat and/or dairy.

Living in Jamaica, I have noticed that many restaurants show little consideration to creating interesting dishes for vegetarians and vegans, often tossing a cheese or tomato pasta in their direction to appease them.  Unless said people find an actual Ital restaurant, hard luck for them.  Even our pea soups and bean stews are made with bones and meat, and our callaloo and ackee dishes are laced with salt cod.  No, eating fish does not count as being vegetarian.  All of this makes it inconvenient for vegetarian and vegan travelers.  There’s only so much hard food (starch) and steamed vegetables one woman (or man) can eat.  Doesn’t a part of one’s travel experiences include the cuisine? 

When I was asked to write a travel piece for this fabulous vegetarian magazine, I was determined to do my due diligence and discover a whole new world for vegans and vegetarians.  With just over a third of Trinidad’s population being descendants from India, their diet includes a lot of vegan food, which you can find anywhere in the country at any hour of the day or night.  None is more prevalent than their infamous breakfast, ‘Doubles’, consisting of two bara (fried, flat dough) and curried chana (chick peas), served with various sauces – hot pepper, tamarind, mango and chadon beni (a more sturdy herb than the similar fresh coriander/cilantro).  From the crack of dawn, until “it dun”, ‘doubles’ are served on small sheets of wax paper and you must use your hands to eat them, despite the risk of sauce dripping down your arm.  It’s all part of the ritual for every true “child” of Trinidad.  Speaking of which, the street presence of chow (fresh fruit with spicy seasonings) and aloo pie (seasoned crushed potatoes inside a fried dough) is high and is a must.

The choices in Trinidad don’t stop there.  While I was staying in Port of Spain, my quest to find a variety of vegetarian food proved to be easy.  I was impressed with Jeunesse Pouchet’s The Youthful Vegan.  While her reason for becoming a vegan was “Solely for animal rights, due to a documentary I saw, ‘Gary Yourofsky – The Most Important Speech You Will Ever Hear’, I became boring because of the lack of vegan options.  I love going out and am extremely experimental with food, so it was frustrating for me.  I have always loved to cook and manipulate ingredients, so decided to open my own business,” Pouchet informed me. 

I was slightly skeptical about vegan food being capable of bursting with flavours, but what awaited pleasantly surprised my taste buds.  Pouchet’s picante tofu buffalo bites with sweet potato fries were made especially delightful when dipped into her vegan blue cheese dressing (miso gives the unique blue cheese flavouring) and her chicken tofu wrap with grilled carrot salad had delicious hints of mustard, coconut oil and paprika.  I consider myself more than competent in the kitchen, but I’m not sure my culinary vegetable imagination quite covers the extent of this self-taught cook.  Pouchet has even come up with her own vegan Pepper Jack ‘cheese’, which she makes from coconut milk, agar agar and seasonings, and a ‘parmesan’ made with garlic and cashews.  As for her vegan pies, cookies and cakes, in which she utilizes dates and sweet potatoes within her frostings and substitutes coconut oil for the the usual butter one would add for fat and flavour – yum.

It was unexpected to find that the meat-serving restaurants didn’t fall short of a hopeful vegetarian’s expectations either.  At the gourmet restaurant Buzo Osteria Italiana, three of us devoured roasted yellow pepper soup, crusted and fried goat cheese with beetroot carpaccio and rocket salad, wild truffle mushroom risotto and a homemade ravioli coated in fresh herb and cherry tomato sauce, washed down with Val d’Oca Prosecco.  No one missed the meat.  At the more cheap and cheerful Svaada, we ate our way through several vegetarian dishes, my favourites being the channa dhansak and bhindi bhagi.  For midrange prices, Paprika Bistro and Jardin do not fall short, ensuring that veggie-loving clientele know efforts were made for them too.

I wasn’t planning on including Trinidad’s twin island, but when I noticed Chef Jason James attending to every guest, during my sojourn at Blue Waters Inn in Speyside, Tobago, I wondered if he would be willing to accommodate traveling vegetarians.  Located in a remote part of Tobago, beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to picking ingredients you suddenly decide you need in order to make vegetarian food.  Yet Jason whipped up four very good vegan dishes in no time.  “I only use locally grown fruits and vegetables,” Chef informed me.  This talented cook takes what little he can get and creates magic.  “I have a passion for what I do and for meeting people, so I’m willing to go off the menu to ensure my guests are happy.”  The whole ethos of Blue Waters Inn is the same way – you feel for a light vegan meal, you’re served it; you fancy paddle boarding, you do it.  You want a heartier, vegan stew, done; you feel like snorkeling, off you go. 

Venturing all the way to the Eastern Caribbean without including Barbados would have been a culinary crime.  It’s true what they say, there is some seriously fantastic food on this beach retreat.  But could Bajans please the palates of discerning vegetarians, I wondered.  Yes, and then some. 

Firstly, there’s Open Kitchen Cafe & Bistro, displayed in a home designer’s dream showroom, amidst the likes of Sian Pampellonne’s stunning art and soft furnishings. The vegetarian dishes are as inviting to one’s tongue as this living-dining area is to one’s eyes.  Then there’s Relish Epicurea, dishing up options like  roasted vegetable and goat’s cheese breakfast wraps, quinoa bowls with eggs, veggies or fruit, Ital curry,  and innovative salads.  However, if you want to go all-vegan, The Good Life Cafe is your best bet, satisfying wrap-lovers with their bean and plantain burrito and spice-lovers with the hot curried tofu meal. 

Of course, when in Barbados, seaside dining is a must for all, so we picked Castaways, where their chickpea tacos made me shamelessly abandon my old adage, “A meal isn’t a meal without some meat.”  It simply is not true.  A chef proves her (or his) divine talent when she (or he) is able to titillate your tastebuds with a vegan or vegetarian meal.


Jamaican born Emma Sharp Dalton-Brown has a BA in Philosophy from the London School of Economics and a Diploma from the Leith’s School of Food & Wine in London.  Emma has written and self-published a novel, “Ignorance Is Bliss”, on Amazon.  She is currently working on her second novel, which she hopes will get picked up by an agent.