Ann's Blog

Portsmouth, Dominica:
April 9, 2010
Laura, the Juice Lady

Portsmouth, Dominica is a charming, friendly town, a mix of old and new, poor and not so poor. The population is about 3,000 – but spend a midweek morning shopping here, and I’m sure you’ll agree that it feels much smaller.

The only day you’re guaranteed to find more than a smattering of fresh produce is Saturday, when the market springs to life and tables blossom for several blocks along the main street. No chain supermarkets have found their way to Portsmouth – it’s a town of mom-and-pop shops. (Mom or pop, is more like it.) Still, if you persevere, you’ll find all the basics, and then some. Granted, you may have to stop at a dozen places to do so.

On one midweek shopping excursion recently, I walked to the far end of town to buy bread (because the loaves sold by the women at a streetside table there are baked in a wood-fired oven, which makes them a cut above the rest; see my February 19, 2010 post), then checked off the nine other items on the day’s shopping list with multiple stops on the walk back. At the Mini-Cash grocery, I had to ask the cashier to retrieve the cereal I wanted: The boxes are so intricately arrayed that I feared extracting one would send them all toppling like a row of dominoes. (Canned goods, meanwhile, are balanced in careful pyramids. The effect of having just a few of each item displayed with such deliberation gives the modest Mini-Cash the look of a high-end boutique – albeit one selling the likes of evaporated milk and Weetabix). At Duverney’s Supermarket, I find Scott paper towels with half-size sheets, the style we favour on Receta. (These rolls were made in Costa Rica, however, and they disintegrate so quickly when put to work that they prove almost useless.) A “snackette” (as snack shops are called in Dominica) yields crisp salted plantain chips; a seamstress’ shop has ripe bananas; another grocery, this one so narrow that two customers have to turn sideways to pass, surprises me with onions, limes, and grapefruit from local trees; and a table in front of a dilapidated wooden roadside house offers some of the season’s first mangoes.  

Worth the walk: Laura (with her nephew) at her
thirst-quenching stand along the road into Portsmouth

Today, I have her fill it with tart-sweet gooseberry juice. Laura also makes a gooseberry confection – reminiscent of a syrupy fruit jam with whole berries – which she sells in small plastic bags for $1 EC (about 37 cents) apiece, and she insists on giving me a bag to try. It’s meant to be eaten as is, straight out of the bag – messy, but good – but I also like it spooned over plain yogurt.

On a stop a week or so ago, Laura told me she had “pumpkin juice.” Thinking it was something only available at Hogwarts, I gave it a try. It turned out to be almost a milkshake, like a pumpkin pie filling thinned to drinking consistency – thick and creamy with hints of cinnamon and vanilla. Yum – but not the juice to choose if you’re looking for a thirst-quencher; Laura’s pumpkin juice is more dessert in a glass. (Green-skinned West Indian pumpkin is different than North American pie pumpkin; its flavor is similar to that of butternut squash.)

“Boil the pumpkin with cinnamon and a little sugar and set it aside to steep overnight,” Laura said, when I asked how she made it. “Then blend it with more sugar, [vanilla] essence, and evaporated milk.” I had all good intentions of giving it a try, but somehow every time I buy a wedge of pumpkin lately, I can’t resist turning it into a proven favorite instead – a chilled curried pumpkin soup with ginger I invented a while back.