Letter from Grenada

by Penny Miller

Hi there from the Caribbean, Grenada to be exact. No, not Granada in Spain, as everyone else seems to think.

We have a bar in Grenada and one of the reasons we opened the bar was that you can only eat so much stewed fish and BBQ chicken! We have a Brit menu and actually do Sunday roast every Sunday, the Full - roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, roast pork and roast lamb, apple pie etc - and steak and kidney pie in the week, liver and onions, shepherd's pie, you name it!

The expats here on the island and the cruiser yachts just love it. The only problem is we don't have any Brit food here - well, not much anyway. A local supermarket used to stock Tesco bits and pieces and some Waitrose but as we are a small island, it is limited and is expensive due to duty. But it makes you more resourceful with what you can get.

It's a case of getting to know the local farmers and finding out when they kill a pig to get the liver and kidneys - otherwise they give them to their dogs!!!

We had a major problem with Oxo when the foot-and-mouth was on and people travelling in from UK ran the gauntlet of customs trying to get it through, but we're back on with that now. Of course we have our pluses here, fantastic fish from the sports fishermen, and good salad – although if you want the best tomatoes you have to go to the post office!!

Pickled onions brought in from UK are usually put up for auction. Nostalgia nights round the bar are plentiful and once someone starts a subject it can go on all night. And yes, Magic Roundabout comes up time and time again. Depending on the age of the drinkers, it can go back to Woodentops and Watch With Mother but after M.R. Clangers comes a close second, complete with soundtrack from the bar.

Of course with the Internet, news is at your fingertips but it doesn't beat someone flying in with a pristine Sunday Telegraph with all the supplements. With the cruising community here - everyone is on their way to Trinidad now for carnival - we get a real mixed nationality custom and this makes for some interesting nostalgia, especially for food from the Scandanavian countries.

We're new to this website so would be pleased to hear from any Brits in our neck of the woods, or anyone who may be visiting.

Penny Miller
The Gallery
St George's
Grenada