Blue Foods

The Blue Food festival is celebrated once per year (usually in the month of October) in the village of Parlatuvier, Tobago. This festival's star attraction is the dasheen (taro) - one of the island's most common indigenous foods. The dasheen is a hairy tuber which when boiled, peeled and sliced, most times take a bluish colour, hence the name Blue Food Festival.

The highlight of the Blue Food Festival is the constant ingenuity and innovation of the dasheen root and leaves. Let's review some options for a seven course meal. Inventive appetizers are pizzas and rolls made with dasheen flour, souses and anchars. Entrees - which are the heart and life of the event to most local and international tourists - are usually expressed as boiled dasheen tubes, callalloo (dasheen leaves with chopped ochroes, pumpkins, coconut milk and other spices, boiled and blended or swizzled to create a soup-like dish), dasheen dumplings and many other sides which absorb the sauces of succulent meats like fish, chicken, pork and wild meats that the island is famous for, such as agouti, iguana, tattoo and rabbit.
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Dasheen Anchar
One has to imagine that with all that eating, there must be dasheen inspired drinks. Say no more.... dasheen punches, liqueurs and wines are also available accompanied with desserts like sweet breads, pones, and of course icecream. All menus are prepared by locals who take pride in displaying their culinary skills and innovation of dasheen yearly, so upon my next visit, this blog may be edited to add more unique and creative dishes made by the dasheen.

 Have a look at the Blue Food experience:
 Video courtesy: Youtube.

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