The Nature Island: Dominica

Join Hema and Mireille on this episode of The Moreish Podcast as they delve into the fascinating history, culture, and cuisine of Dominica. From the Indigenous population, colonial influences, traditional celebrations, to the shift from mountain chicken as the national dish.

Resources

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/mountain-chicken-how-we-almost-lost-the-caribbeans-largest-frog.html 

https://discoverdominica.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqA3WfMkTMY

Know Your Caribbean podcast: episode The Maroons of Dominica

https://www.britannica.com/place/Dominica

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/dominica/

https://www.slavevoyages.org/

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Dominica

https://www.britannica.com/place/Leeward-Islands

https://www.slavevoyages.org/voyage/essays#interpretation/overview-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/the-african-side-of-the-trade/5/en/

https://questfortheafricanwool.wordpress.com/2021/08/11/slave-voyages-to-dominica/

https://divisionofculture.gov.dm/

Recipes:

https://globalkitchentravels.com/breadfruit-puffsupdated/

https://globalkitchentravels.com/coconut-bread-pudding/

Transcript

Hema: Hi, I'm Hema. 

Chef Mireille: And I'm Mireille. 

Hema: Last week, we left off with a little hint about the island we're speaking about today. We said this country officially changed the name of the Indigenous people from Carib back to the original Kalinago in 2015. 

I know you also have a really personal connection to this country, so why don't you share a little bit about the country we're going to be talking about today? 

Chef Mireille: I have a very close connection to Dominica. Dominica is the birthplace of my grandmother. My grandmother was born in a small fishing village in the south called Pointe Michel 

There are very few recipes or things written about the cuisine of Dominica, but I actually own the first cookbook ever printed about the cuisine of Dominica. It's called A Taste of Nature Island Cooking. It is out of print, but if you're in the Caribbean, you may still be able to get it at like little local bookstores, but it's definitely like not on Amazon.

Hema: Have you taken the inspiration from some of those recipes and adapted it for your website? 

Chef Mireille: Yes because back in the day, they just assumed you would know certain things.

Like with certain recipes, it'll say, make a custard with the milk and eggs. Well, if you don't know how to make a custard, how are you going to do that? I've taken some of those recipes and broken it down specifically for people who may not know how to make a custard.

Hema: We'll add a link to some of those recipes in the show notes. We've talked about the Caribbean being a place that many people think of as a vacation spot, but Dominica is not one of those that seems to be top, top of mind at least for North Americans, when you're looking at a Caribbean vacation.

I did look at how some of the resorts and articles were speaking about Dominica, and some of the things they said was, it's an exotic island, lush rainforests, volcanic peaks, hot springs, one of the Caribbean's best kept secrets, and luxury accommodations. It's also known, and I think that was alluded to in the title of that cookbook, it's known as the Nature Island of the Caribbean.

Chef Mireille: Yes, it's one of the few places that has a boiling lake. I think it's one of three places in the entire world, if I remember. It has so many natural wonders.

Hema: Hopefully today we will inspire some people to learn a little bit more about Dominica and then maybe visit with a little bit of the knowledge that we're sharing. Before we go any further, I really want to make sure that we're clear today that we're talking about Dominica and not the Dominican Republic. They are two different places and we will eventually be talking about the Dominican Republic, but today it's Dominica.

If you don't know where this island is located geographically, you'll find it north of St. Lucia and Martinique. And South of Guadeloupe in the Eastern Caribbean. 

The current population in Dominica is approximately 74,600 with a mix of approximately 85 % Black of African descent, 9 % mixed heritage, 3.7 % indigenous, and 1.3 % white. The rest of the percentages are nominal. When we talk about the Indigenous population of other Caribbean islands, we often talk about the past, and who did inhabit these islands in the past.

But Dominica is the only Caribbean island with a present day notable Indigenous Kalinago population, with about 3,500 people who are descendants of the inhabitants of the island pre colonization. 

Chef Mireille: They live on a protected area of the island. It's almost like the reservations in the United States, 

They're treated much better, And I stayed in what was then called Carib Territory, it's now called Kalinago Territory when I was in Dominica. I stayed in the guest house that the chief and his wife owned, and it was amazing. I would be shelling coffee beans with her in the kitchen, and a lot of my Dominica recipes, I learned from her.

Basically they live very communally the way they did, thousands and thousands of years ago, in that anything that's grown on the land is shared between the community.

Hema: Dominica is the name given to the island by Christopher Columbus, but it is not the original name of the island. Now I want to do right by this name and not mispronounce it.

 Do you know how to pronounce this, Mireille? 

Chef Mireille: When you brought this name up to me, I'm obviously not Kalinago, so I didn't know. So I did some research on YouTube, and there is a trail named after this, and there was this cute little song in the video, and I just mimicked the pronunciation from the song, and it's called Waitakabuli.

Hema: Waitakabuli is the original name and Christopher Columbus gave the name Dominica. Similar to the history of other Caribbean nations that we've spoken about, the Arawak people who likely came from South America were inhabiting the island. Sometime in the 14th century, the Kalinago or Caribs if you're reading any of the history or research books, you'll probably see them listed as Caribs, came to the island and took over. 

This is very similar to many of the other] islands that we've talked about. On November 3rd, 1493, Christopher Columbus and a crew on his ship arrived and gave the island the name Dominica. Apparently he chose the name Dominica because it was a Sunday when they landed at the island, and in Latin, Domingo means Sunday or the Lord's Day. They didn't last very long on the island because they were driven off by the Kalinago who were defending their territory.

Chef Mireille: There’s a story I've always been told, was when Columbus arrived in Dominica, Kalinago saw them coming, and they're like, we don't know what these people are about, we're gonna go hide out and see what they want. So they went and hid out in the mountains. Dominica is a volcanic island.

It's very, very mountainous. And basically he couldn't find them. He couldn't find anybody there. So he wrote to Queen Isabella, and was just like, there's nobody here. He literally called it a garbage island. It has no resources. There's nothing here because he basically didn't want to tell her, we can't find them.

We don't know where they are. And that's what made him move on. But now that you say that maybe they did have some squabbles and he, and the Kalinago were the victors and he didn't want to tell her that. So that's why he wrote that. 

Hema: Very possible. He didn't want to seem like he couldn't gain control and had just had to move on.

In the history of the island, there were a few, failed attempts to capture and colonize the island. And we'll see a lot of back and forth in the history. In 1627, the British made an attempt and failed around. 1632, the French attempted to claim the island with missionaries, and they did settle on the island, but they couldn't really control the Kalinago.

For a long time, about a hundred years, the European countries that were attempting to colonize the island left it alone. And it was because of this that the indigenous people who were being driven out of other Caribbean islands had a place to flee to and they fled to Dominica. In and around 1748, there was a treaty between France and Great Britain, and it was decided that the island would remain neutral territory and remain under the control of the Kalinago people.

 All throughout this time, there were attempts by both the French and the British to take control of the island. They really weren't able to and they settled, but they allowed the Kalinago people to maintain control. Likely not out of the goodness of their heart, it was because the Kalinago people were very strong and held out being colonized and overtaken. For several years, the control of the island was between the French and the British.

The French, as I mentioned earlier, who arrived on the island with missionaries continued to settle. In 1759, the British captured the island and it was in 1763 that it was ceded back to Great Britain after the Seven Years War. In 1778, French forces who came from Martinique, recaptured the island.

The British came back in 1783. The French, who were on the island of Guadeloupe attempted to take Dominica back in 1795, but they failed. And in 1805, the French attempted again, they burned the capital, but were forced to withdraw. 

The British, who held off the French, established a legislative assembly in 1763, but at the time it only represented the white people.

There is a lot of history and in my research on Dominica, there were tidbits here and there that I'm going to mention right now, but it was not the easiest island to research.

We're going to put in the show notes some links to other articles that you can read to get a fuller, richer look at the history. There was mention of a bill called the Brown Privilege Bill in 1831, which was meant to provide political and social rights to free people of color. Slavery was abolished in 1833, and just two years later in 1835, three men of African descent were elected to the Legislative Assembly. It was around this time that Dominica became the only British colony to have a legislature that was controlled by Black people of African descent.

They were merchants or landowners whose views opposed those of the wealthy English plantation owners. 

Chef Mireille: That's amazing that so soon after slavery, they were able to participate in power, in government. That's, I think, really rare when you look at the history of either the United States or other Caribbean islands.

Hema: It is very rare as we'll see throughout some of the other episodes that we talk about.

1871 saw Dominica become part of the British Leeward Islands. which was a British colony, and it was then split and Dominica became part of the British Windward Islands. The split between the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands were really a north and south split.

Mireille, you'll probably notice that to this point, I haven't really mentioned the transatlantic slave trade or how and when the people of African descent got to Dominica. 

Chef Mireille: I'm just waiting. I knew they had to get here sometime. 

Hema: We know that the British and the French were part of the transatlantic slave trade, and so they would have brought enslaved people with them. But let me take a little sidestep here and talk about a resource that I use on a regular basis, slavevoyages.org. is a wealth of information, including articles on their view on the how the slave trade happened, and why specifically the enslavement of the African people happened, and where in Africa they came from.

Oftentimes you'll hear me mention the embarkation point of the enslaved people, and where they boarded the ships, but that isn't necessarily their country of origin. 

In an article by David Eltis on the Slave Voyages website, he mentions that West Central Africa sent more enslaved people than any other part of Africa every quarter of a century, with the exception of the period between 1676 and 1725. he writes, “ No European, whether convict, indentured servant, or destitute free migrant was ever subjected to the environment which greeted the typical African slave upon embarkation. The sexes were separated, kept naked, hacked close together, and the men were chained for long periods.” 

Between the period of 1751 and 1850, approximately 117,000 enslaved Africans embarked on ships from the Gold Coast, the Windward Coast, Guinea Islands, and other places in Africa. Approximately 102,000 disembarked in Dominica and these ships were largely owned by Great Britain. There are a few articles that I want to mention. An article by Albert Williams called 450 Slave Trading Voyages to Dominica. There is a website called the Division of Culture with the mission to promote, develop, and share information on Dominica's history.

There is an episode of the Know Your Caribbean podcast called the Maroons of Dominica that is very interesting. 

I didn't mention the Maroons of Dominica at all in today's episode, and it is a whole section of history that's really interesting and really worth digging into. They were African people on the island who led organized rebellions against slavery and they had camps in the mountainous highland regions. 

Chef Mireille: The Maroons have maintained their culture a lot. They have a lot of the traditional African dances that are performed for different, festivals and stuff. 

Hema: In the present day, the official language of Dominica is English, but you will find the French influences in Dominican Creole or French patois, as well as influences from the indigenous and West African. Mireille, in my research, I came across the dialect of Kokoi. Do you know anything about this? 

Chef Mireille: Actually, I don't.

When I visit Dominica, I only hear people speaking either English or the local Patois. Even the Kalinago. Kalinago speak Patois. 

Hema: All I could find was that it is a mix of Cockney English with some African influences and is spoken by some people on the island today.

As we sort of round out the history section of this podcast, we'll see that the influences come from, the British and the French, who were the, the two European countries who colonized the island.

They are influences from the indigenous population, influences from the enslaved Africans, and that all of that comes together to create what is the current day culture of Dominica. And as I end my section, I'm going to hand it over to Mireille, who's going to talk a little bit about food and culture. 

Chef Mireille: I've obviously witnessed these mixed up cultures firsthand, even when you walk through the capital of Dominica Rosseau, my mother's always telling me I'm mispronouncing it.

It's either Rosseau or Rosseau. I think it's Rosseau. She's going to yell at me when she listens to this episode. You can see the different architecture styles. There are some parts of the Capitol that are very reminiscent of the French Quarter from New Orleans in Louisiana. And then there are other parts that are more British in style. They have a look of more colonial style buildings. 

Every single Caribbean island has market day pretty much every Saturday all the farmers and everybody who grows fruits, vegetables, spices Even animals, you know like homegrown chickens They come to the capital and they sell it and right next to the current market day, there's an old market square and that is actually the block, if you like, where the slaves used to be sold. And a lot of people walk by it and don't even realize it. 

Chef Mireille: People from Dominica are very proud of their culture and no season represents that more than independence season. 

In Dominica, it is a whole month of celebrations. Throughout the whole entire island, there'll be different things celebrating food, music, dance, and culture.

Even the schools get involved. There'll be many days where there'll steel band competitions or a day in the park where people are just selling, the traditional foods of Dominica. There's also a Heritage Day and a Creole Day, not to mention the World Creole Music Festival, which brings people from all over the Caribbean and French speaking Africa to Dominica.

On Creole Day, that is a beautiful sight to see because people will dress up in the traditional clothing. 

It's called the Wob Dwiyet and it's some combination of white cotton lace and vibrant plaid colored cloth, which is actually called Madras cloth. During slavery times, most plantations, for lack of a better word, had a uniform, and that's how they identified the different plantations they were from.

But they were always these boring drab colors -  blue, gray, beige - all of these neutral colors. The one time that the enslaved people were allowed to dress up and go all out was on Sundays for church. And this is when they would wear the Wob Dwiyet and they would bring out the most vibrant colors.

 On Créole Day, these people are dressed in these traditional clothing, and then some of the traditional dances are danced. There's two that I wanted to mention.

One is the quadrille, which came from France, and then there's another one called the bele which came from Africa. I found some samples of this on YouTube, so they will be linked in the show notes. But you also found a couple of other celebrations in your research, Hema, that I didn't even know about.

Hema: I did and I don't know how big or how small these are, but a couple of the other celebrations that I wanted to mention was Kalinago Week, which is in September, a week to celebrate the Kalinago people . The other one that I want to mention is the Real Mass or Mas Dominique, similar to Carnival that happens all over the Caribbean, and it is a specifically a combination of the French and African cultures in Mas Dominique.

Chef Mireille: Actually, I knew about that one, but we just call it Carnival. 

Hema: What's important to know is that there is a meaning behind carnival and behind J'ouvert. And we're going to talk about the meaning behind some of these festivals in other episodes and why you have carnival on many of the islands is the common history that we all have. 

Chef Mireille: A lot of people think the carnival is just about, dancing and getting drunk - just a lot of frivolity. Yes, it's a happy occasions that we celebrate, but it's more than just dancing in the street and drinking rum. Like you said, there is history, there's culture, there's meaning behind some of the traditional costumes. 

Hema: Let's go back. to your section, which is one of my favorite topics, food.

Chef Mireille: In this first, kind of season of this podcast, we're mostly focusing on the national dishes of each island, but there's going to be a lot of overlap and because I don't want it to get repetitive when the national dish is one that exists on another island, I might bring dishes that are not necessarily the national dish.

The national dish of Dominica is Calaloo Soup, which really has similar interpretations throughout the African diaspora, like American collard greens, African okra soup, Haitian lalo. These were all brought to the Americas with slavery, but since this is also part of the national dish for next week's island, I'm going to kind of save a deep dive into that for next week.

I'm instead going to focus on what used to be Dominica's unofficial national dish, and that's mountain chicken. Now, this dish really isn't kind of rooted in Africa or even Indigenous history, but just an example of the ingenuity of the people, taking advantage of what's available in its local waters.

Necessity and availability is what made mountain chicken so popular. You know, many times throughout the African diaspora, you find the scraps that enslaved people were given or things that normally, most people may not consider edible. That's what they chose to make use of. It was available and they could make something delicious with it.

Mountain chicken used to be Dominica's national dish, but actually it has nothing to do with chicken. But it's actually a type of frog. Due to the large size of this particular frog, it's called the giant ditch frog. And it makes, apparently, chicken like squawking sounds. That is how it got its name. Because of its extremely large size and this sound that it makes. and these frogs, we actually call crapaud in Dominica.

In Dominica, no one's going around saying giant ditch frog. 

Hema: It’s very similar to a word we use in Trinidad, Crapo and crapaud is the French word for toad or frog. 

I happen to know that because I'm Trinidadian and being Canadian, we start to learn French, which is the second official language in Canada. And crapaud is a word that I learned so toad or frog, and that would be a call back, probably to the French colonization times. 

Chef Mireille: In Dominica, they also speak a French based patois, so that's why you'd have the use of crapaud. This frog, it's native to the Caribbean, particularly in Dominica and Montserrat.

It has many names, even though we call it crapaud, the official names, it's known as the giant ditch frog. It can grow to be up to 20 centimeters and weighing up to one kilo. That's a pretty big frog. Sadly they almost became extinct and that is the reason why it's no longer the national dish. It's forbidden. to hunt them or try to capture them in Dominica. To give you how big a part of Dominican culture the mountain chicken was, it would be mentioned in calypso songs, in poems.

It's actually part of Dominica's coat of arms. At one time, anywhere between 18,000 to 36,000 mountain chicken frogs would be caught in Dominica annually. That's a lot of frogs. But it wasn't just this aggressive hunting that caused them to almost become extinct. It was actually a fungus, which I'm not even going to try to pronounce, so it will be in the show notes, that really caused this extremely rapid decline in the mountain chicken populations. 

This fungus reduced the quantity of mountain chicken by 85 percent within 18 months. After some failed attempts to fight this fungus, they decided to move the remaining populations to Europe to some science organizations so that they could be bred in captivity away from the fungus.

Developments in treating the fungus throughout the years have helped in starting to grow the population natively again. However, the mountain chicken still remains endangered and it is now illegal to hunt the giant ditch frog in Dominica. You might be wondering now how did people cook these frogs in Dominique?

Well, it was cooked many different ways, but I would say the most popular way was to make oil down, or what's called run down in some, Caribbean islands where it's basically stewed in coconut milk with, herbs, spices, aromatics. But since I know none of you will be cooking the endangered Mountain Chicken, make sure you come back next week to learn all about Calaloo Soup.

I am going to include I'm going to include some recipes from Dominica in the show notes. These were some recipes that I learned from the Kalinago chief's wife. we have a recipe for breadfruit puffs. We have a recipe for coconut bread pudding. So do enjoy those and I hope you enjoyed this exploration into Dominican history, culture, and cuisine.

Thank you so much for joining us this week as we explored Dominica on The Moreish Podcast. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at The Moreish Podcast. 

Hema: Come back next week to find out which Caribbean nation we'll be talking about next. Here's a hint. This island is shared between two countries. That can be a couple of places, but that's all I'm going to tell you right now.

Head over to Instagram, leave a comment, and tell us where you think we are venturing next. And in the meantime, feel free to share pictures of any of the recipes that you've made, and tag us. We want to see which islands and which cuisine you've tried so far. We'll see you next week.

Bye! 

Chef Mireille: Bye!