One island, two countries: St. Martin & Sint Maarten

In this episode of The Moreish Podcast Hema discusses the shared island of Saint Martin / Sint Maarten, exploring its history, cultural influences, and Mireille talks about the food,  highlighting the variations in cuisine between the French and Dutch sides, emphasizing the impact of European colonization and African heritage on the local culture and national dish, Callaloo Soup.

Resources

https://www.britannica.com/place/Sint-Maarten

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

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

https://www.slavevoyages.org/

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

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/sint-maarten-population/

https://www.visitstmaarten.com/fun-facts-st-maarten

https://www.wearesxm.com/restaurants/traditional-local-food

Recipes

https://www.tasteefulrecipes.com/caribbean-boiled-coconut-dumpling/

Callalo Soup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBVXHXlhmUU

https://www.uncommoncaribbean.com/nevis/taste-of-the-caribbean-the-incredible-island-conch-dumpling-soup-at-nisbet-plantation/

https://cheflolaskitchen.com/jute-leaves-soup-ewedu-mulukhiyah-or-molokhia/

Transcript

Hema: Hi, Mireille. Last week we said that this island that we're talking about today is shared between two countries.

Mireille: Yes, the island, let's see, depends how you say it. You can say Saint Martin in English, Saint Martin, or the way we say it in Dutch, as you know, my family's from the Dutch Caribbean, is Sint Maarten.

Hema: Today, Mireille, we are talking about the island that has the two countries, Saint Martin and Sint Maarten.

This is a well known tourist destination, and it's an island in the northeastern part of the Caribbean.

The island is divided into two sides, Saint Martin is the French side and Sint Maarten is the Dutch side and it is the smallest inhabited landmass owned by two different countries.

 You might be wondering why we're talking about two different countries in one episode, whereas in the past, we've talked about one country, one episode, and that's because the history of this island is so intertwined. It really just makes sense to talk about it as one and if you know about the island or if you've been there, you will understand what we're talking about. And if you don't, stick around because we'll talk about it a little bit more. And I think by the end of today's episode, it will make sense. The north side of the island is called Saint Martin and is part of France and the southern part of the island is St. Maarten and is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 

Mireille: So let me ask you a question. Since one is France and one is the Netherlands, do they have EU citizenship? 

Hema: They do. 

I've been to this island on vacation once. It was many, years ago. And even though it is two countries, one island, it's an unrestricted border and crossing from one side to the other you wouldn't even really know that you're crossing because it's so unrestricted. It's very much like one country. I stayed close to Philipsburg on the Dutch side. There is a slight difference in the overall atmosphere on either side. Whereas the French side seems to be a little bit more opulent, higher end stores, very much catering to tourists. Whereas I found that the Dutch side was a little bit more casual and homey.

The early history of this island is similar to that of the other Caribbean nations that we've talked about thus far. The original inhabitants of the entire island were the Indigenous. Arawak and Carib people. Europeans came along, settled, brought slavery to the island.

Mireille: Let's remember now, the Caribs have renamed themselves to their original tribe name, the Kalinago.

 Hema: That's a really great point, Mireille, to bring up, is that they have reclaimed the name Kalinago. And I think I use both of those interchangeably at this point in time, because for the most part, if you are looking at history books or articles online, you're going to still see the name Carib in most places, so it's important to recognize that where you may see Carib, eventually, it will say Kalinago or at least both.

Mireille: I think most people, even the Caribbean itself, they still call them Caribs. I think the only people, like we mentioned in the Dominica episode, where the culture is still intact, calling them Kalinago has literally become part of the culture of Dominica.

 Hema: Let's dive into the history. 1493, Christopher Columbus came along and claimed the island for Spain, and he gave the island the name Isla de San Martín, since it was November 11th, Saint Martin Day. While he did claim the island as Spanish territory, they didn't settle there at the time. It was the French and the Dutch who were really interested in the island because of its geographic location.

In 1631, the Dutch who had occupied the island. They actually considered it a really good halfway point between their colonies in New Amsterdam, which is what is currently New York, and Brazil. 

 It wasn't an island necessarily that they, at the time, were interested in inhabiting. 

Mireille: So it's more like a trading port? 

Hema: Not a trading port, but a stop port. A wayside, but you'll see as we go on that they did actually settle there. But for them, the highlight and the reason for having the island and controlling it was because it was a good stopping point between those 2 places, New York and Brazil. 

Mireille: Gotcha. 

Hema: They did establish Fort Amsterdam on what is currently the Dutch side, and they used it to protect against invaders, but then they began salt mining.

Apparently, during this time, there were other European nations forming settlements on the island, the French and the British. And the island became quite successful in mining operations and colonies, and the Spanish became more interested in the island, and they reclaimed it in 1633. 

At that time, they built the old Spanish fort. which is currently on the Dutch side to protect their territory. 

At this point, you'll see that there were three different European nations that were interested in the island. The French, the British, and the Dutch. I'm going to stop here and just note that between 1568 and 1648, which was the 80 Years War, there were some provinces in the Netherlands who revolted against the Spanish King.

It's not really germane to this conversation today, but I wanted to mention it because there were ongoing conflicts in other countries that we are talking about today. It was after this war in 1648 that Spain no longer needed a base in the Caribbean and they left the island. It was at this point that the French and the Dutch re-established their settlements on the island because they had bases in other Caribbean islands. 

There was some conflict between the French and the Dutch, but eventually they did decide to divide the island. 

 Between 1648 and 1816, the border between the French and the Dutch on the island did fluctuate, but eventually the French claimed about 61 percent of the island, and that's kind of how it stands today. 

They have an island together, although they weren't necessarily seemingly that happy about it at the time. 

As we know from the history of other Caribbean islands, the settlers were the ones that introduced the slave trade, because they really needed people to do work on the plantations and in the mines, specifically here in, St. Martin, in the salt mines.

 The Spanish bought the first enslaved African people to the island, and later when the cultivation of tobacco and cotton and sugar grew. Also, the enslaved population grew. On July 12th, 1848, the French abolished slavery on their side of the island, and the Dutch followed 15 years later.

The success of the plantations started to decline and also the economy started to decline. In 1939, Saint Martin was declared a duty free port, and in the 1950s, the island began developing the tourism industry. In 1936, the Dutch began using the spelling that is currently used today, Sint Maarten.

It became part of the Dutch West Indies and was one of the six Dutch island territories, which included Aruba, Curaçao, St. Martin, Bonaire, Saba, and St. Eustatius. In a June 2000 referendum, the residents approved changing the status to be separate and an autonomous entity within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Mireille: Something came across my phone yesterday and it was this article because actually in 2010, the Dutch West Indies, was basically officially dissolved. But at that time they wanted to literally break away and have their own currency and it was voted on. But you know, like governments, they can have a lot of bureaucracy. This year they're changing their currency.

So before it was the Nederland Antilles Gilder, but now they're rolling it out the second part of this year, and it's going to be replaced in both St. Maarten and in Curaçao with the Caribbean Gilder. 

Hema: Interesting. This is specifically speaking about the Dutch side of the island. 

Mireille: Yes, even though tourism is a main thing, pretty much you can use the U. S. dollar when you're going around there, but still their official currency on the Dutch side is going to be the Caribbean Gilder. 

Hema: The official language on the Dutch side is Dutch and English, but there are many other languages represented from other Caribbean islands. 

Mireille: So do they speak Papiamento there like we do in Aruba and Curaçao and Bonaire as well? 

Hema: I don't know. When I was there, everybody spoke English. And I think that's because it is so much an island focused around tourism that I didn't actually encounter anybody speaking anything besides English.

Mireille: For those of you who may not know what I'm talking about, Papiamento is a Portuguese based creole that's spoken in what we refer to as the ABC Islands, which are the largest islands of the Nederland Antilles, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

Hema: We're gonna hop over to the French side of the island, which belonged to the French Overseas Department of Guadeloupe. and attained separate status in 2007. St. Martin's population is predominantly of African or mixed African European heritage, and the official language of St. Martin or St. Martin, which is the French side, is French.

The overall population of the island is about 75,000 with approximately 33,000 living on the French side and 41,000 living on the Dutch side. The ethnic groups represented are Creole, Black, Guadeloupe Mestizo, which are French and East Asian, White, and East Indian, but finding the percentage breakdown was a little bit challenging.

Mireille: It's just really interesting that they use the term mestizo, because that also, in Mexico, refers to people who are mixed Indigenous and white heritage. So it's just interesting how, when they say French here, they're referring basically white.

How white and East Asian has the same name. And it's really two very different cultures. 

Hema: Very different cultures. 

The culture of each side of the island is influenced by France for Saint Martin or the Netherlands for Sint Maarten. But also the history of the people of the island has influences in today's culture from the enslaved Africans, the European settlers, Dutch, French, and British, and other neighboring islands.

Now, we're going to talk a little bit about the food, and I'm going to hand that over to Mireille. 

Mireille: Okay, so the food, the most exciting part. due to St. Martin being split, or Sint Maarten, the national dish comes from both sides. There's three parts to the national dish. The Callaloo Soup comes from the French side, and then we have conch and dumplings from the Dutch side.

 Hema, since you've been to St. Martin, did you notice any marked difference in the cuisines between the Dutch and the French side? 

Hema: That's a great question. Because the island is so highly focused on tourism, on the French side, you would get a little bit more what I would consider upscale, but I don't know that I had any true cuisine from the island.

I had meals that were catered to tourists, so I don't think I noticed a huge difference. 

Mireille: Okay, gotcha. 

Hema: This was probably the first place where it was very difficult to actually learn much about the local culture because there was so much tourism and so much catering to tourists and some of the large ships that came and all along the coast, you will see dotted with resorts.

So, it was very much a touristy experience. 

Mireille: You know, it's so interesting that you say that, because, for me, a big frame of reference for me is Aruba, where my mother is from, and I'll read articles, or I'll see other food bloggers talking about the food of Aruba, and they'll say things like, coconut shrimp and these things that you just get in hotels, but we don't really consider that like part of our national cuisine.

That's just a popular tourist food, but people who come there because tourism is what drives the Aruban economy so much, and I imagine the same is for Saint Martin, that they're catering to tourists and you're not going to get a lot of the traditional foods in restaurants, hotels.

Hema: You're absolutely correct.

Mireille: Okay, let's get to the food. So you're going to notice with these smaller islands that there's a lot of common dishes because many of these islands have had both a history of British and French involvement. While I hate, when people treat us as a monolith, not recognizing that different islands each have their own culture, their own history, their own cuisine, we can't deny that many islands are very similar and these similar cuisines are because of common colonizers and proximity.

Hema: The people that came and colonized the islands, the countries that came and colonized the islands, very generally were the same countries and very generally participated in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, which meant that there was the European influence and the African influence.

And there's other nuances on other islands that we'll be talking about, but for the most part, it's very similar history, which I think then translates into very similar culture and very similar cuisine. 

Mireille: Absolutely. So you're just going to as easily find the foods here in St. Martin as you will in islands like St.Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Dominica, Martinique, Guadeloupe. Just like St. Martin's native Creole population is a mix of Dutch, French, African, Indigenous, so does the food, which can all fall under this very broad category of the Creole foods of the Caribbean.

They're just basically a mix of European cultures, African cultures and Indigenous cultures. In essence, all Caribbean food is what would be called fusion cuisine, even though I find that term so grossly overused in today's culinary world, but essentially that's what it is.

Hema: Very much so. It is a fusion of the history of the people. Of the island. and that's really what we're talking about in all of these episodes is who the people are and where they came from creates this mashup into what is current day culture and current day cuisine. 

Mireille: And that's why we get so upset or at least I do. I'll speak for myself, Hema when people think, jerk chicken is representative of the entire Caribbean. Because, it's not. We have so many different cultures that came together in the Caribbean. When you say jerk chicken represents our culture, you're forgetting about the Chinese who came to the Caribbean. You're forgetting about the Indians who came to the Caribbean because jerk chicken is rooted from Africa. So you're forgetting about all of the other people that contributed to our cultures and our societies. 

Hema: What we're going to talk about many times over in this series and in this podcast is very often you will find a dish with the same name in different countries, but there are slight nuances.

Mireille: Okay, now let's get into the national dish, Callaloo Soup. Last week, I also mentioned Callaloo Soup because it's Dominica's national dish. Although we spoke about Mountain Chicken, and if you didn't listen to that episode, please go ahead. It's a really exciting episode. 

Hema: It is an exciting episode, and mountain chicken isn't chicken. If you want to know a little bit more, go back to last week's episode and have a listen. 

Mireille: Now, there are variations of Callaloo Soup, and it goes by slightly different names throughout the Caribbean. However, in my research, I've noticed that basically the similarities between the different versions are rooted in two notable West African recipes where most of the enslaved populations came from.

And that's okra soup and jute leaf soup, which is known as  Ewedu soup in Nigeria. Nigerians, if you're listening in and I mispronounced that, my apologies. Green leaf vegetables and sometimes okra are cooked together into a soupy, almost gelatinous state, which is what okra provides. I love okra.

I don't know why people have issues with the gelatinous of it. It's one of my all time favorite vegetables. Do you like okra? 

Hema: I grew up eating callaloo. I'm Trinidadian and okra is a very big part of callaloo and I like that texture, but I don't necessarily like okra the way it's made every single time, that sort of gelatinous part of it, or the sliminess, if it's not cooked correctly, in my opinion, it's a little bit of a weird mouthfeel.

Mireille: Whether it's gumbo from, New Orleans cuisine, okra fritters. Okra in soup to me okra, you can never go wrong with it. Anyway, enough of my okra love. 

Hema: I grew up knowing it as okro, which is how Trinidadian people, or at least the Trinidadian people that I know, call it okro.

Mireille: My mom says okro too, and I've spent my entire life correcting her. Cause I grew up here in America and I'm like, Mom, it's okra. And she's like, that's okro. 

Anyway, it's cooked into this soupy, gelatinous state, and then also often meat and seafood may be added. In the Caribbean, the vegetables used in Callaloo soup will vary. Even though they all have the same name, doesn't mean they're all using the same vegetable.

For example, in Trinidad, when you guys make Callaloo, you guys are using Dasheen bush, or what in English would be, or what I should say in standard English, as opposed to Trinidadian English, would be taro leaves. That's what Callaloo is made from. 

However, like in Jamaica, they also make a dish called Callaloo. There, they don't make it as soupy. It's more closer to, like, a stir fried version. And they actually use amaranth there. They do not use dasheen bush.

Hema: Growing up here in Toronto this is a little, was a little embarrassing for me as a kid. When we used to go apple picking in the Niagara region, oftentimes my mom or my aunt or both of them would wander off to a different part of the orchard and pick leaves and use that to make callaloo. And to be honest, I have zero idea what leaves they were picking, but they would have plastic bags of leaves that they picked in some apple orchard that they turned into Callaloo. 

Mireille: Wow, that's really interesting. Who knows but that just shows the ingenuity, because literally it could be made with any green leaf vegetable. Okay. So now in Haiti, they have kept it really original from the African version.

And to this day, we still make it with jute leaves. We usually combine jute leaves and spinach and we call the dish Lalo. And then often, usually crab. is very common to be added into it. as you would know, and I think crab is often added in the Trinidadian version a lot. In Dominica, Crab Callaloo is very common.

But then in Haiti, we also have a dish called Kalaloo, spelled with a K, not a C, and in that Kalaloo is literally the word for okra. There's two common preparations of Kalaloo in Haiti. One is where it's cooked with beef and basically a stew, like a stewed beef and okra dish. And then we also have Sos Kalaloo, where after we cook the Kalaloo, it's pureed with like coconut milk.

And of course we've cooked it in the coconut milk with spices, aromatics, etc. that's often cooked with both crab and beef. And that is closer to the African version of Okra soup.

So you see how all of these culinary lines just continue. It's so amazing. 

We see these different variations throughout the Caribbean and it's really interesting, not just in our food, but our dance, music, everything that comes up in our Caribbean cultures, you can absolutely see the stamp of Africa on it.

Let's now get into the national dish of St. Martin. The St. Martin version of the Callaloo soup is made with dasheen bush, or taro leaves, with spinach and okra. It's cooked with the normal aromatics that we use in the Caribbean, like thyme and scotch bonnet pepper, as well as ground provision. in the Caribbean ground provision simply refers to a bunch of root vegetables.

It could be things like plantain, breadfruit, yam, cassava, all of these things. And they are often just simply boiled because they're meant to just be a vehicle for the main dish so that the gravy of the main dish, will flavor them. Crab is a common addition to this callaloo soup, and other meats can also sometimes be included.

Now to the Dutch side. The Dutch side of the national dish is conch and dumplings. Now, I know a lot of you people are going to be out there and say, isn't it pronounced conch? I grew up saying conch and to me, it doesn't sound natural to me to say conch. 

Hema: I grew up knowing it as conks. Now, I don't really like it that much. I haven't had it a lot in my lifetime, but conch sounds so very foreign to me. 

Mireille: In Sint Maarten, the conch is first cooked until very tender, usually in a pressure cooker, and it's made then into a really delicious soup.

Of course, in the Caribbean, dumplings have to be added, and also breadfruit and other ground provision may be added. while many people just use plain dumplings, it's also really popular to make coconut dumplings, which is generally made with fresh grated coconut and coconut milk. 

Everybody makes their coconut dumplings a little bit different. And we'll have these recipes plus other recipes mentioned in this episode, in the show notes.

Hema: That’s it for this week's episode. Come back and join us next week. Find out which Caribbean nation we're tackling next. 

Here's a hint. This is one side of the island of Hispaniola and has the distinction of having the highest peak and the lowest point in the Caribbean. If you know what we're talking about or if you have a guess, head over to Instagram and leave us a comment.

Mireille: Thanks for joining us this week as we explored St. Martin or Sint Maarten on The Moreish Podcast. If you like our independently podcast, head over to the show notes for ways you can support the show. Thank you.

Hema: Bye.