Food & Drinking Culture

Corn 'n' Oil is the cocktail often mentioned on Barbados whenever the island's drinking culture comes up. It consists of dark rum, falernum (a spiced syrup with lime and almond), a touch of lime juice, and bitters. The name refers to the dark, oily appearance of the rum as it floats on the pale syrup.

What Barbados calls its national dish comes from the sea: Cou-Cou with flying fish. Cou-Cou is a firm porridge made of cornmeal and okra, topped with fillets of flying fish in a spicy vegetable sauce. The fish is considered the island's national fish and even appears on the one-dollar coin. In Speightstown, where the boats land on the beach and at the fish market, it is traditionally gutted and filleted before making its way into kitchen pots.

Among the dishes that pair well with rum is Pudding and Souse, commonly served on Saturdays: pickled pork cuts with steamed sweet potato. At Christmas, Black Cake appears on the table, a dark cake made with dried fruits soaked in rum for a long time. On Independence Day, November 30, there's Conkies, parcels of cornmeal, pumpkin, and coconut steamed in banana leaves.

Excursions in the north bring food and landscape together. The Animal Flower Cave sits at the island's northern tip, and in Speightstown, the old port town, small food stalls are part of everyday life. In summer, Barbados celebrates Crop Over, the festival marking the end of the sugarcane harvest, with music, costumes, and Kadooment Day as its climax. Rum accompanies the festival, but remains a drink meant for enjoyment, not excess.