St Kitt’s, St Bart’s are Feasting on Waves with Alton Brown
I was watching Alton Brown’s Feasting on Waves the other night. It sure makes me wish I could go sail the Caribbean. The idea of the show is that they have two catamarans, and they are sailing from island to island to find true authentic Caribbean food. That is my kind of show.
To start out with, they were at St. Kitt’s. Sugarcane was a huge crop there, until places like Brazil started to grow it in massive numbers, then St Kitt’s just couldn’t compete. Now, they have all these cane fields, but from the sound of it, most of the fields just sit there.
They ate some really good looking food. One thing was green bananas, boiled in the skin, then mashed with milk and I think she said sugar. Sounds good to me.
Alton also munched on some sugarcane, drink some bush tea made from lemongrass and soursop.
After they left St Kitt’s, they went to St Bart’s. Alton wasn’t extremely overjoyed at this, because, I believe, St Bart’s is a more upscale, and less authentic island than some other Caribbean nations.
Anyway, they went to St Bart’s and went to the original burger joint that was made famous in Jimmy Buffett’s song ‘Cheeseburger in Paradise’. How was it? Alton said (without a lot of enthusiasm) “it’s good, but…[it's still just a burger].” Some of that was added by me. I know what he’s thinking. It may be a good burger, but when you are looking for authentic Caribbean cooking, that isn’t it.
They also got to try some spiny lobster fricassee. Now the only thing I know about fricassee is that the bad guy used to always try to do that to Bugs Bunny. It is basically, meat cut into pieces and stewed in gravy. Alton asked the chef if she would like to compete on Iron Chef America.
I sure wish I could do something like this. I love food, and I love the ocean, and I love the Caribbean, I’m just not a millionaire.
Posted on September 10, 2008 - Filed Under Food, Jamaica, Beaches, and the Caribbean, Travel
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nak: Cheeseburger In Paradise was written after a night at Village Cay Marina in Tortola. Jimmy clarified the facts in an interview on Radio Margaritaville with Miles Hampton before the July 26, 2007.
MILES: It says here in this new magazine I read on the way here, Caribbean Travel & Life, that you wrote that tune, Cheeseburger In Paradise, at Stanley’s Welcome Bar at Tortola. Did they get the facts right there?
JIMMY: Nope…Actually I’ve been to Stanley’s Welcome Bar, but I wrote it about Village Cay Marina in Tortola.
MILES: And there’s a restaurant there, right?
JIMMY: There was in those days. It was the only restaurant and it was the first and real cheeseburger you could have down there. I know Stanley’s well, but if you want the factual, real fact information, it was written after a night at Village Cay Marina. The song was written and I probably played it at Stanley’s a few times, you know. There wasn’t much on Tortola in those days. It’s gotten a little bit bigger in recent years.
Brind, thanks for clearing that up.
Whatever the truth may be, Stanley’s Welcome Bar is taking credit for being the Cheeseburger in Paradise original.
I’m sure that there are a number of other places scattered throughout the Caribbean calling themselves the reason behind that song.
Ben
I find Jimmy’s response very interesting because he told me in 1984 that ” Cheeseburger in Paradise” was specifically written about ” Stanley’s Welcome Bar” in Cane Garden Bay..he told the same thing to another friend who ran the FloraBama where Jimmy used to play and yet another pal ran into Jimmy and Peter Tosh jamming at Stanley’s one night and Jimmy told him the same thing..