Two Years in the French West Indies Part 31

The great worm, or caterpillar, called _ver-palmiste_ is found in the heads of cabbage-palms,--especially after the cabbage has been cut out, and the tree has begun to perish. It is the grub of a curious beetle, which has a proboscis of such form as suggested the creole appellation, _lefant_: the "elephant." These worms are sold in the Place du Fort at two sous each: they are spitted and roasted alive, and are said to taste like almonds. I have never tried to find out whether this be fact or fancy; and I am glad to say that few white creoles confess a liking for this barbarous food.

The _zandouilles_ are delicious sausages made with pig-buff,--and only seen in the market on Sundays. They cost a franc and a half each; and there are several women who have an established reputation throughout Martinique for their skill in making them. I have tasted some not less palatable than the famous London "pork-pies." Those of Lamentin are reputed the best in the island.

But _poule-epi-diri_ is certainly the most popular dish of all: it is the dearest, as well, and poor people can rarely afford it. In Louisiana an almost similar dish is called _jimbalaya_: chicken cooked with rice.

The Martiniquais think it such a delicacy that an over-exacting person, or one difficult to satisfy, is reproved with the simple question:--"_ca ou le 'nco-poule, epi-diri?_" (What more do you want, great heavens!--chicken-and-rice?) Naughty children are bribed into absolute goodness by the promise of poule-epi-diri:--

--"_Ae! che, b doudoux!

Doudoux ba ou poule-epi-diri; Ae! che, b doudoux!_"...

(Ae, dear! kiss _doudoux!--doudoux_ has rice-and-chicken for you!--_ae_, dear! kiss _doudoux!_)

How far rice enters into the success of the dish above mentioned I cannot say; but rice ranks in favor generally above all cereals; it is at least six times more in demand than maize. _Diri-doux_, rice boiled with sugar, is sold in prodigious quant.i.ties daily,--especially at the markets, where little heaps of it, rolled in pieces of banana or _cachibou_ leaves, are retailed at a cent each. _Diri-aulaitt_, a veritable rice-pudding, is also very popular; but it would weary the reader to mention one-tenth of the creole preparations into which rice enters.

VI.

Everybody eats _akras_;--they sell at a cent apiece. The akra is a small fritter or pancake, which may be made of fifty different things,--among others codfish, t.i.tiri, beans, brains, _choux-carabes_, little black peas (_poix-zie-noue_, "black-eyed peas"), or of crawfish (_akra-crib.i.+.c.he_). When made of carrots, bananas, chicken, palm-cabbage, etc. and sweetened, they are called _marinades_. On first acquaintance they seem rather greasy for so hot a climate; but one learns, on becoming accustomed to tropical conditions, that a certain amount of oily or greasy food is both healthy and needful.

First among popular vegetables are beans. Red beans are preferred; but boiled white beans, served cold with vinegar and plenty of oil, form a favorite salad. Next in order of preferment come the _choux-carabes_, _patates_, _zignames_, _camanioc_, and _cousscouche_: all immense roots,--the true potatoes of the tropics. The camanioc is finer than the choux-carabe, boils whiter and softer: in appearance it resembles the manioc root very closely, but has no toxic element. The cousscouche is the best of all: the finest Irish potato boiled into sparkling flour is not so good. Most of these roots can be cooked into a sort of mush, called _migan_: such as _migan-choux_, made with the choux-carabe; _migan-zignames_, made with yams; _migan-cousscouche_, etc.,--in which case crabs or shrimps are usually served with the _migan_. There is a particular fondness for the little rosy crab called _tourlouroux_, in patois _touloulou_. _Migan_ is also made with bread-fruit. Very large bananas or plantains are boiled with codfish, with _daubes_, or meat stews, and with eggs. The bread-fruit is a fair subst.i.tute for vegetables. It must be cooked very thoroughly, and has a dry potato taste. What is called the _fleu-fouitt-a-pain_, or "bread-fruit flower"--a long pod-shaped solid growth, covered exteriorly with tiny seeds closely set as pin-heads could be, and having an interior pith very elastic and resistant,--is candied into a delicious sweetmeat.

VII.

The consumption of bananas is enormous: more bananas are eaten than vegetables; and more banana-trees are yearly being cultivated. The negro seems to recognize instinctively that economical value of the banana to which attention was long since called by Humboldt, who estimated that while an acre planted in wheat would barely support three persons, an acre planted in banana-trees would nourish fifty.

Bananas and plantains hold the first place among fruits in popular esteem;--they are cooked in every way, and served with almost every sort of meat or fish. What we call bananas in the United States, however, are not called bananas in Martinique, but figs (_figues_). Plantains seem to be called _bananes_. One is often surprised at popular nomenclature: _choux_ may mean either a sort of root (_choux-carabe_), or the top of the cabbage-palm; _Jacquot_ may mean a fish; _cabane_ never means a cabin, but a bed; _crickett_ means not a cricket, but a frog; and at least fifty other words have equally deceptive uses. If one desires to speak of real figs--dried figs--he must say _figues-Fouanc_ (French figs); otherwise n.o.body will understand him. There are many kinds of bananas here called _figues_,--the four most popular are the _figues-bananes_, which are plantains, I think; the _figues-makouenga_, which grow wild, and have a red skin; the _figues-pommes_ (apple-bananas), which are large and yellow; and the _ti-figues-desse_ (little-dessert-bananas), which are to be seen on all tables in St.

Pierre. They are small, sweet, and always agreeable, even when one has no appet.i.te for other fruits.

It requires some little time to become accustomed to many tropical fruits, or at least to find patience as well as inclination to eat them.

A large number, in spite of delicious flavor, are provokingly stony: such as the ripe guavas, the cherries, the barbadines; even the corrossole and _pomme-cannelle_ are little more than huge ma.s.ses of very hard seeds buried in pulp of exquisite taste. The _sapota_, or _sapodtilla_, is less characterized by stoniness, and one soon learns to like it. It has large flat seeds, which can be split into two with the finger-nail; and a fine white skin lies between these two halves. It requires some skill to remove entire this little skin, or pellicle, without breaking it: to do so is said to be a test of affection. Perhaps this bit of folk-lore was suggested by the shape of the pellicle, which is that of a heart. The pretty fille-de-couleur asks her doudoux:--"_Ess ou ainmein moin?--pouloss tire ti lapeau-la sans ca.s.se-y_." Woe to him if he breaks it!... The most disagreeable fruit is, I think, the _pomme-d'Haiti_, or Haytian apple: it is very attractive exteriorly; but has a strong musky odor and taste which nauseates. Few white creoles ever eat it.

Of the oranges, nothing except praise can be said; but there are fruits that look like oranges, and are not oranges, that are far more noteworthy. There is the _chadeque_, which grows here to fully three feet in circ.u.mference, and has a sweet pink pulp; and there is the "forbidden-fruit" (_fouitt-defendu_), a sort of cross between the orange and the chadeque, and superior to both. The colored people declare that this monster fruit is the same which grew in Eden upon the fatal tree: _c'est ca menm qui fai moune ka fai yche conm ca atouelement!_ The fouitt-defendu is wonderful, indeed, in its way; but the fruit which most surprised me on my first acquaintance with it was the _zabricot_.

--"_Ou le yon zabricot?_" (Would you like an apricot?) Cyrillia asked me one day. I replied that I liked apricots very much,--wanted more than one. Cyrillia looked astonished, but said nothing until she returned from market, and put on the table _two_ apricots, with the observation:--"_ca ke fai ou malade mange toutt ca!_" (You will get sick if you eat all that.) I could not eat even half of one of them. Imagine a plum larger than the largest turnip, with a skin like a russet apple, solid sweet flesh of a carrot-red color, and a nut in the middle bigger than a duck's egg and hard as a rock. These fruits are aromatic as well as sweet to the taste: the price varies from one to four cents each, according to size. The tree is indigenous to the West Indies; the aborigines of Hayti had a strange belief regarding it. They alleged that its fruits formed the nourishment of the dead; and however pressed by hunger, an Indian in the woods would rather remain without food than strip one of these trees, lest he should deprive the ghosts of their sustenance.... No trace of this belief seems to exist among the colored people of Martinique.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREAD-FRUIT TREE.]

Among the poor such fruits are luxuries: they eat more mangoes than any other fruits excepting bananas. It is rather s...o...b..ry work eating a common mango, in which every particle of pulp is threaded fast to the kernel: one prefers to gnaw it when alone. But there are cultivated mangoes with finer and thicker flesh which can be sliced off, so that the greater part of the fruit may be eaten without smearing and sucking.

Among grafted varieties the _mangue_ is quite as delicious as the orange. Perhaps there are nearly as many varieties of mangoes in Martinique as there are varieties of peaches with us: I am acquainted, however, with only a few,--such as the _mango-Ba.s.signac_;--_mango-peche_ (or peach-mango);--_mango-vert_ (green mango), very large and oblong;--_mango-greffe_;--_mangotine_, quite round and small;--_mango-quinette_, very small also, almost egg-shaped;--_mango-Zeze_, very sweet, rather small, and of flattened form;--_mango-d'or_ (golden mango), worth half a franc each;--_mango-Lamentin_, a highly cultivated variety--and the superb _Reine-Amelie_ (or Queen Amelia), a great yellow fruit which retails even in Martinique at five cents apiece.

VIII.

... "_Ou c'est bonhomme caton?-ou c'est zimage, non?_" (Am I a pasteboard man, or an image, that I do not eat?) Cyrillia wants to know.

The fact is that I am a little overfed; but the stranger in the tropics cannot eat like a native, and my abstemiousness is a surprise. In the North we eat a good deal for the sake of caloric; in the tropics, unless one be in the habit of taking much physical exercise, which is a very difficult thing to do, a generous appet.i.te is out of the question.

Cyrillia will not suffer me to live upon _mange-Creole_ altogether; she insists upon occasional beefsteaks and roasts, and tries to tempt me with all kinds of queer delicious, desserts as well,--particularly those cakes made of grated cocoanut and sugar-syrup (_tablett-coco-rape_) of which a stranger becomes very fond. But, nevertheless, I cannot eat enough to quiet Cyrillia's fears.

Not eating enough is not her only complaint against me. I am perpetually doing something or other which shocks her. The Creoles are the most cautious livers in the world, perhaps;--the stranger who walks in the sun without an umbrella, or stands in currents of air, is for them an object of wonder and compa.s.sion. Cyrillia's complaints about my recklessness in the matter of hygiene always terminate with the refrain: "_Yo pa fai ca ici_"--(People never do such things in Martinique.) Among such rash acts are was.h.i.+ng one's face or hands while perspiring, taking off one's hat on coming in from a walk, going out immediately after a bath, and was.h.i.+ng my face with soap. "Oh, Cyrillia! what foolishness!--why should I not wash my face with soap?" "Because it will blind you," Cyrillia answers: "_ca ke tchoue limie zie ou_" (it will kill the light in your eyes). There is no cleaner person than Cyrillia; and, indeed among the city people, the daily bath is the rule in all weathers; but soap is never used on the face by thousands, who, like Cyrillia, believe it will "kill the light of the eyes."

One day I had been taking a long walk in the sun, and returned so thirsty that all the old stories about travellers suffering in waterless deserts returned to memory with new significance;--visions of simooms arose before me. What a delight to see and to grasp the heavy, red, thick-lipped _dobanne_, the water-jar, dewy and cool with the exudation of the _Eau-de-Gouyave_ which filled it to the brim,--_toutt vivant_, as Cyrillia says, "all alive"! There was a sudden scream,--the water-pitcher was s.n.a.t.c.hed from my hands by Cyrillia with the question: "_Ess ou le tchoue c-ou?--Saint Joseph!_" (Did I want to kill my body?)... The Creoles use the word "body" in speaking of anything that can happen to one,--"hurt one's body," "tire one's body," "marry one's body," "bury one's body," etc.;--I wonder whether the expression originated in zealous desire to prove a profound faith in the soul....

Then Cyrillia made me a little punch with sugar and rum, and told me I must never drink fresh-water after a walk unless I wanted to kill my body. In this matter her advice was good. The immediate result of a cold drink while heated is a profuse and icy perspiration, during which currents of air are really dangerous. A cold is not dreaded here, and colds are rare; but pleurisy is common, and may be the consequence of any imprudent exposure.

I do not often have the opportunity at home of committing even an unconscious imprudence; for Cyrillia is ubiquitous, and always on the watch lest something dreadful should happen to me. She is wonderful as a house-keeper as well as a cook: there is certainly much to do, and she has only a child to help her, but she always seems to have time.

Her kitchen apparatus is of the simplest kind: a charcoal furnace constructed of bricks, a few earthenware pots (_canar_), and some grid-irons;--yet with these she can certainly prepare as many dishes as there are days in the year. I have never known her to be busy with her _canari_ for more than an hour; yet everything is kept in perfect order.

When she is not working, she is quite happy in sitting at a window, and amusing herself by watching the life of the street,--or playing with a kitten, which she has trained so well that it seems to understand everything she says.

IX.

With darkness all the population of the island retire to their homes;--the streets become silent, and the life of the day is done.

By eight o'clock nearly all the windows are closed, and the lights put out;--by nine the people are asleep. There are no evening parties, no night amus.e.m.e.nts, except during rare theatrical seasons and times of Carnival; there are no evening visits: active existence is almost timed by the rising and setting of the sun.... The only pleasure left for the stranger of evenings is a quiet smoke on his balcony or before his door: reading is out of the question, partly because books are rare, partly because lights are bad, partly because insects throng about every lamp or candle. I am lucky enough to have a balcony, broad enough for a rocking-chair; and sometimes Cyrillia and the kitten come to keep me company before bedtime. The kitten climbs on my knees; Cyrillia sits right down upon the balcony.

One bright evening, Cyrillia was amusing herself very much by watching the clouds: they were floating high; the moonlight made them brilliant as frost. As they changed shape under the pressure of the trade-wind, Cyrillia seemed to discover wonderful things in them: sheep, s.h.i.+ps with sails, cows, faces, perhaps even _zombis_.

--"_Travaill Bon-Die joli,--anh?_" (Is not the work of the Good-G.o.d pretty?) she said at last.... "There was Madame Remy, who used to sell the finest _foulards_ and Madrases in St. Pierre;--she used to study the clouds. She drew the patterns of the clouds for her _foulards_: whenever she saw a beautiful cloud or a beautiful rainbow, she would make a drawing of it in color at once; and then she would send that to France to have _foulards_ made just like it.... Since she is dead, you do not see any more pretty _foulards_ such as there used to be."...

--"Would you like to look at the moon with my telescope, Cyrillia?" I asked. "Let me get it for you."

--"Oh no, no!" she answered, as if shocked.

--"Why?"

--"_Ah! faut pa gade baggae Bon-Die conm ca!_" (It is not right to look at the things of the Good-G.o.d that way.)

I did not insist. After a little silence, Cyrillia resumed:--

--"But I saw the Sun and the Moon once fighting together: that was what people call an _eclipse_,--is not that the word?... They fought together a long time: I was looking at them. We put a _terrine_ full of water on the ground, and looked into the water to see them. And the Moon is stronger than the Sun!--yes, the Sun was obliged to give way to the Moon.... Why do they fight like that?"

--"They don't, Cyrillia."

--"Oh yes, they do. I saw them!... And the Moon is much stronger than the Sun!"

I did not attempt to contradict this testimony of the eyes. Cyrillia continued to watch the pretty clouds. Then she said:--"Would you not like to have a ladder long enough to let you climb up to those clouds, and see what they are made of?"

--"Why, Cyrillia, they are only vapor,--brume: I have been in clouds."

She looked at me in surprise, and, after a moment's silence, asked, with an irony of which I had not supposed her capable:--

--"Then you are the Good-G.o.d?"