Bakes, Bakes & Bakes!
Taste Like Home
By Cynthia Nelson
Stabroek News
March 10, 2007
Hi Everyone, I say bake, you say float. I say muffin, you say fried dumpling. I say saltfish and bake, you say shark and bake. And the truth is we could go on. The bottom line is - they are fried dough of deliciousness. And we could travel the entire Caribbean seeking to discover what it means in each different territory when someone says, "Gimme ah bake."
My first encounter with Bajan bakes was in 1998 while attending a regional media workshop here (in Barbados). One morning, those of us from Guyana sat together for breakfast in the restaurant of our hotel. Most of us ordered something with toast, but one of our colleagues ordered saltfish and bakes. The food arrived. We all saw our colleague's mouth-watering saltfish cooked with onions and tomatoes arrive. We decided to wait for her bakes to arrive before we started eating.
Five minutes passed and we grew impatient, we were hungry. My colleague called the server over and enquired about the bakes. The young lady looked a little taken aback. She said, "Ma'am, your bakes are right there on the plate with the salt fish." With the plate clearly visible to all of us at the table, we looked at it with dropped jaws.
"Oh my gosh, those are bakes?!"
Neatly arranged on the plate with the saltfish were four tiny bakes, each no larger than the size of a phulourie. We did not recognize them as bakes, because they did not look like the bakes we are accustomed to in Guyana. I remembered someone whipping out their camera to take a picture of the bakes. Those media people!
In retrospect, I can suggest that the chef was trying to save my colleague. Here's why: Bajan bakes are small and dangerously delicious, you can be tricked into eating too many! It's like over-snacking. You keep returning to the plate of bakes because they are so handy and you can pop a whole one into your mouth. My friends, Gwen and Marie, shared their recipe with me - an unleavened batter that is pan fried and now I'm a big fan of Bajan bakes. The only drawback I find is, unlike our Guyanese bakes, you can't stuff anything into a Bajan bake.
I was introduced to Vincentian bakes while making Guyanese bakes, looking for a taste of home. My helper asked me what I was making, and when I told her bakes she looked a little sceptical. She was not accustomed to bakes being anything at all like what I was making. She began to tell me how different the bakes are that they make in her homeland, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The following week, she turned up with bakes she had made. They were indeed different - they were thick, round, solid, and compact. When you bit into it, there was a satisfying feel of a mouthful.
Vincentian bakes are really hearty by themselves. They can be eaten just by biting into them or slicing and spreading with butter or jam. But the Vincy bake also isn't a bake to be stuffed.
Trin-bagonians make two kinds of bakes. One is called coconut bake. This bake is made by kneading the dough with coconut milk and then cooking the dough by actually baking it in an oven. It's like a quick bread. This means that the Trini coconut bake is the only bake that is actually… well, baked. The other Trini bake is called float or a fry bake and it's similar to the bakes we make in Guyana. Trini bakes, or floats as they call them, are often eaten with fried shark.
Guyanese bakes and Trini floats are great for stuffing with anything! Be it saltfish, shark, eggs, cheese, ham, vegetables, whatever you like. I know some people like theirs with fried mackerel or sardines. In Guyana and many other Caribbean countries, bakes are popularly eaten with saltfish. The thing is if you put bakes on a table among other dishes, the first thing to go would be the bakes! Some people can't wait to sit down to the table for their meal of bakes, like some of my cousins. I remember one evening when my cousin Shantie, was making bakes for dinner. She was busy with the rolling and the frying. Her brothers, Dave and Keshwar, would carefully time when each bake would finish cooking, would sneak by and stealthily grab them one at a time. She got so frustrated, she chased them around the house with the pot spoon.
Leaving out texture and appearance, the difference between the bakes had to do with how they feel in my mouth. Bajan bakes are firm and chewy because there is no leavening agent (baking powder or yeast); Vincy bakes are soft and have a really satisfying feel; Guyanese bakes and Trini floats range from feeling soft to chewy because they are often filled with something - you get a combination of textures and flavours.
When my mind calls for bakes, I like to eat them warm with some butter that melts between all the nooks and crannies. Chase it down with a cup of tea and I'm good to go.
Bake time is anytime. It is one of those foods that work well for breakfast, lunch, dinner or as a snack. Bake vendors are found throughout the region. On Friday afternoons, St Lucian women can be seen at some corners frying bakes to sell with the barbeque chicken; in Barbados on Saturdays, vendors can be found outside supermarkets plying their trade. In Trinidad and Tobago, the Breakfast Shed is the place to be for floats and bakes. At Cheapside Market here in Barbados, there is a Guyanese woman, Suzanne who sells bake and saltfish every Saturday morning.
So while they come in various shapes, sizes and textures, and are called many things - bake, float, dumpling, fried dumpling, or muffin, the truth is, we love them. For some of us, bakes are the perfect food, satisfying in their own right and even better with that lil' extra something. Let's be honest, fried dough rules!
Cynthia