ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA...A TALE OF TWO ISLANDS

Formerly a part of the British Empire, the national dish of these Caribbean islands is fungie and pepper pot. That does not read "fungi". Nope! Not a scrap of mushrooms in that stuff.

Pepper pot has a variety of ways it can be made. It can be as complex, or as simple as you would like. I went for simple. In essence, pepper pot is a meat and vegetable stew with s kick to it. Tubular vegetables are often used, increasing the cooking time. Meat can be a combination of beef, and pork, including pig snouts and beef hooves.

I began with half a pound of ham hocks and a pound and a half of stew beef. You might as well just use ham, because I ended up cutting the rind off of the hock, leaving very little meat. The meat was browned with a large sliced onion. Then, these were put in a large stew pot, along with 10 sliced okra pods, 4 cups of beef broth, 1 seeded and sliced habernero pepper, 3 cloves of garlic sliced, 2 tablespoons of fresh thyme, canola oil and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then simmer for an hour. After the hour, I put in half a pound of fresh spinach leaves. Stir this up so that the spinach wilts. Bring to a boil, and simmer another half hour to an hour. Give it a taste, and adjust the salt and pepper as necessary.

While the pepper pot was cooking, I made the fungie. Fungie is very simple to make. All you need is 2 cups of corn meal, 3 cups of water, salt, 3 sliced okra pods, and 2 tablespoons of butter.

In a pot, boil the water with salt and the okra. Boil for 3 or 4 minutes. Now, scoop about 2 cups of water out, and set aside. While the remaining water and okra is boiling, add the corn meal, and begin to mix. Add the 2 cups of water you set aside a little at a time. Once the mixture is thoroughly mixed, put the butter in a bowl, and spoon out balls of the mixture, and roll it around in the butter. Set these aside.

Now, the pepper pot will be hot and spicy, and the fungie will be bland. I put the fungie in a bowl, and spooned the pepper pot on top of it. Essentially, we have corn meal dumplings. The mixture is absolutely delicious. Since this is an island food, you need an island drink. Anything with rum in it should do the trick. Drink enough of it, and you may begin to see island girls dancing around...or so I am told.

FUNGIE:

2 cups Corn Meal
3 cups Water
Salt to taste
3 Okra Pods sliced
2 Tablespoons Butter

PEPPER POT:
1/2 lb. Ham...or cheap pork of your choice
1 1/2 lb. stew beef...or cheap beef of your choice
1 large Onion sliced
1/2 to 1 lb. Spinach
10 Okra Pods sliced
1 Habernero Pepper sliced
3 cloves Garlic sliced
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons fresh Thyme
2 tablespoons Canola Oil