Lunch in St Lucia for $5.00 Canadian
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One Pot. One Chair. One Table. Charmin’
dining hidden in plain sight.
By Stephen Weir
How does Charmaine Desir do it? Her food
shack on the edge of Castries Central Market doesn’t have a sign, has only a
bench for three and one seat at the dinner table. Oh yes, it doesn’t appear to
have power and the roof leaks over the visitors when it rains.
It is easy on the island of St Lucia to
enjoy expensive fine dining, 4-star restaurants abound. Finding a hearty,
gut-pleasing meal for $5? Now that is an adventure that seasoned travellers
should consider taking.
For the past17 years the Castries shack
chef has been feeding customers one serving at a time in an unmarked shed (look
for a cartoon of a young couple having lunch and checking their smart phone).
Those in the know find her and as a result there is always a customer or two
outside waiting to be fed.
Since she can only seat one or two
people at a time, she gets to know her customers really well "if you don't
make people happy, they won't come back" she told the Caribbean Camera.
She serves mostly locals shopping at the market but tourists do come in when
there are cruise ships in the port. Now and then she feeds lost
journalists too!
Rainy season hangs over the small
mountain nation of St. Lucia, in the Caribbean Sea. Saturday it was one of
those days. Sunny skies in the morning. Buckets of rain by noon. I was walking
aimlessly near the under-construction Castries Central Market in the capital
city. When the clouds rolled down the high mountains to the south, a light
mist, turned into a deluge and within minutes the rain seemed to be falling
sideways.
I looked for shelter and saw a woman
sitting on a chair in front of a dinner table in a small shack on wheels at the
edge of the market. It was Charmaine and
she was beckoning me over to her door.
“ Come in” she said. “Take a seat and
dry yourself off.”
“What are you serving,” I asked.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Veggie stew?” I suggested.
“ Well I am only serving one thing today
because it is Saturday. It is a stew and it is filled with veggies.”
I sat at the table while Charmaine
stirred the one pot on a portable stove behind her. There was a cooler near by
with sodas and fruit drinks. There was
no room for anything else aside from a small bench beside the door where people
could wait for take-out.
Charmaine brought over the stew. At my request she point out what was in it.
Bread Fruit. Plantain. Carrots. Pork. Guess she misunderstood the word veggie,
(I meant vegetarian).
“I don’t work on Sundays because I have
to cook for the week. I live close by but I don’t have a car so I get rides
from friends who help me with my food.” She told me. “One meal. One pot. One
day. Except on Fridays and when cruise ships comes into port. Then I might make
Mac and Cheese, a chicken dish. And of course pork.”
We talked. I ate. I was too hungry to
care about the chunks of meat. I ordered another pork-stew meal. I made her
promise not sell me a third, even if I started to whimper and beg for more. It
was that good.
Half way through the second dish she
covered the open window with a board to block the rain. I ate in the dark (she has little or no
power) and put on my baseball cap because of the holes in the roof directly
above me.
When it stopped, she opened a door and a
young woman came in. The visitor stood beside me as I finished my meal and
listened to us talk. As I left the
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