Antigua and Barbuda: Fungee and Pepperpot

"Good afternoon, is that Whap Dem Am Cum?", "Snapper's Paradise?", "The Grub Vendor?", "Am I speaking to Norma's Blessed Hands?". In a fit of desperation I spent the best part of a day ringing random West Indian takeways. "You don't happen to do any Antiguan food do you?.... Do you know anywhere that does?". The best reaction I got was a brief chuckle and a "No".

Things hadn't gone too well earlier either, speaking to the Caribbean Food Emporium an organisation dedicated to promoting West Indian food in the UK.

"Good morning, just a quick query, are there any restaurants that serve Antiguan food in London?"
"Ha, not that I know of" the lady replied.
I proceeded to sob about how you could only get Jamaican or Trinidadian food here, this won her sympathy.
"Oh darling, I feel your pain! I'm from Antigua too." She gushed.
"There is this one Antiguan guy who owns a Caribbean restaurant, but they don't serve Antiguan food. I'll give him a ring to see if he can do something for you, what's your number?... So whereabouts are your family from in Antigua?"

I paused for a second, feeling a West Indian lilt creep in, should I play along? What's the capital? St John's (there's a famous cricket ground there), it's a small island though, could be tricky. Eventually I fessed up and explained my blog.

Her voice dropped..."So you're not Antiguan?!" It was as if she'd found out I secretly had a wife and kids. She hasn't called me back yet.

Further attempts to source the Island's elusive national dish 'Fungee and Pepperpot' (calling the High Commission and joining 'Antiguans in the UK' on Facebook) proved fruitless so I was forced back into the kitchen. I bought my ingredients in Harlesden where there's supposedly an Antiguan community and scoped out a few more takeaways, sadly jerk reigned supreme.

'Fungee' pronounced 'Fun' (like a Northerner would) 'Jee', is a thick paste made from cornmeal and okra often served rolled in a ball or shaped in a bowl. A similar dish called 'Cou Cou' exists in Barbados. 'Pepperpot' is a stew combining salt meats with a variety of vegetables such as aubergine, spinach, cho cho (a small pear like squash), calaloo (leaves from a root vegetable called taro) and okra.

Brixton market is a mecca for the more exotic ingredients involved. If you live in North London, Harlesden's unbeatable, particularly Blue Mountain Peak which sells everything from sugar cane to luminous red pig snouts.

Here's the recipe I used, adapted from Antigua and Barbuda's Board of Tourism:

Ingredients:

For the Pepperpot
6 calaloo leaves, shredded
500g spinach, chopped
1 large aubergine, chunked
500g okras, chopped
500g West Indian pumpkin (pictured), peeled and chunked
3 cho cho (pictured), chopped
500g green papaya, peeled and chunked (if available, make sure it's not red inside!)
1 pint of frozen peas
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 whole scotch bonnet
500g salt beef, chopped
500g pigs snouts (fresh or salted), chopped
a cup of beef stock or 1 stock cube

Pepperpot seasoning
2 cloves of garlic, minced
a bunch of chives
a couple of sprigs of thyme
3 tbsp ketchup

For the Fungee
2 pints water
6 okras cut into small pieces
1 pint of cornmeal
salt to taste

Pepperpot
Simmer the salt meats in water for about 10 minutes to take away some of the excess salt. Remove and drain. Fry in oil for 10 minutes, add the onions and fresh snouts (if you're using them) and fry for a further 5 minutes. Add the veg except for the peas and stir. Pour in just enough water to cover it all along with the stock and whole scotch bonnet, simmer until the veg is tender.

When the meat and veg are cooked through mash the thyme, chives and garlic together in a mortar and add to the pot with the peas and ketchup. Simmer on a low flame until the stew thickens, about 15 minutes or so.

Fungee
Place the 2 pints of water, salt and okra in a saucepan, bring to the boil until the okra's cooked. Pour away half of the cooking liquid. In a jug, mix the cornmeal with cold water to a thick batter consistency. Add this mix to the remaining liquid in the pan and reduce the heat to a low flame. Now stir continuously with a wooden spoon for around 20 minutes, the fungee's ready when it's stiff and separates cleanly from the bottom of the pan. Butter a small bowl and mould some of the mixture into it, turn it out onto a serving dish alongside the pepperpot.

Serves 5-6

Preparing fungee is a herculean task, the constant stirring as the mixture thickens up left my hand worn and blistered and my right arm pumped up like a fiddler crab's. I'd recommend wearing a glove.

As a dish Fungee and Pepperpot is nice enough, obviously it's hard to judge it on the version I cooked. Fungee is pure stodge which get's a bit much after a while, the pepperpot and a decent glug of hot sauce makes it much more appetizing though. Pepperpot tastes of goodness, it's packed with nutrition and the combination of exotic vegetables provides some exciting flavours. Unfortunately the gloopy texture from the okra and calaloo take a while getting used to. I'd rather make it with fresh meat instead of salted which became tough and could have benefited from an overnight soaking. The snout (which I prefer roasted until crispy) was pretty unpleasant, dotting the stew with gelatinous lumps of stale pigginess.

It's a shame that out of the 4,000 or more Antiguans over here seemingly not one is bringing their home cooking to the public. My one hope, Mr Vel's, a takeaway near Old Street which was a possiblity (I'd noticed it had been a ticket outlet for an Antiguan independence day party) is now an Indian takeaway. It's a problem I'm probably going to encounter for a lot of the smaller Caribbean islands, my only hope is to get in training for a 10 meal marathon at the Notting Hill Carnival in August!