My Near Death Experience

Last week I had my first “near death” experience in Grenada.  That’s actually an exaggeration, but I still kind of feel that way!  So here it is from the beginning: 

I had the week’s menu planned out as I usually do and Saturday was to be beef soft tacos.  I went to IGA grocery store bright and early Thursday morning for meat and produce, as IGA has the freshest selection of these items around Thursday and Friday of each week.  Last week the boat didn’t make it in on time so their shipment was late.  The selection of produce was pretty terrible and I needed lettuce, avocado and tomato for tacos.  I found some tomatoes, but had no luck with the lettuce and avocado.  They did have, however, callaloo, which is a green leafy vegetable that I’d heard was similar to spinach.  It was extraordinarily cheap and readily available so I purchased a bag of it.  Problem solved, right?  Not quite. 

Thursday night I made chicken and vegetable couscous for dinner.  I had the bright idea to try out some of our spinach wilted into the dish.  I merrily go ripping off some leaves, wash them in water and marvel at how the leaves seem to repel water.  I throw them in a skillet and cook them down, mix them into the couscous and serve it to my husband and I.  It was great!  A pretty good meal.  There was a good portion leftover so I boxed it up in some Gladware and planned to take it for lunch the next day.  Fast forward to Friday… I’m sitting on the beach with a bunch of SOs.  [Also saw the deadly manchineel tree while on the beach, but that's another story.  And reason number two Grenada is trying to kill me.]  We’re all just chatting away when the topic of conversation turns to food, as it often does when there are food items you miss from home or food you’re trying to cook here.  We often try to swap recipes and meal ideas.  One girl asks what I’m eating and I give her a rundown of what’s in the couscous.  She and her friend are curious about the faux-spinach so I pull out a piece and give it to them to try.  I rave about how it’s just like spinach, but cheaper and more abundant.  Score!

Now fast forward to soft taco day.  I’m sitting at my computer Saturday afternoon not doing anything related to food whatsoever- probably facebooking or something.  Suddenly I remember a plant that I heard about in Hawaii that is toxic raw, but safe cooked.  I ask Jade if he knows what I’m talking about.  He says taro is that way.  I jump on Wikipedia to look it up and think to myself, “hmm, that looks sort of like what I have in my fridge.”  Then I Wikipedia callaloo.  In a nut shell, callaloo is both the name of a popular Caribbean dish as well as an actual green, leafy vegetable.  The dish can be made with callaloo the vegetable or any number of other leafy greens found in the Caribbean.  But here’s the kicker: they often call multiple types of leafy greens callaloo, including taro, and what is known by one name in Jamaica or Trinidad does not necessarily go by the same name in Grenada.  That’s something I’ve already learned in my time here.  Locals can call any plant, animal, produce, etc. anything they want to and the local name is not necessarily what I would know it by.

Suddenly I’ve got this ache in my stomach because I’m afraid I’ve given the two girls on the beach bad information.  I tell Jade I don’t think we should eat the callaloo in the fridge because I’m not 100% sure what the plant actually is.  He says he doesn’t think it is taro and shrugs it off like it’s no big deal.  I’m not settled by his response so I continue to research and find this-  “The plant is inedible when raw and considered toxic due to the presence of calcium oxalate.  Calcium oxalate is highly insoluble and contributes to kidney stones.  Taro leaves also must be handled with care due to the toxicity of the leaves, but are completely safe after cooking.”  Jade asks me if I would feel better if he went upstairs and asked the family if it was taro or not.  I said yes and he went upstairs.  Ten minutes or so later he comes down with that classic Jade grin and says, “well it’s a good thing we asked!”  Turns out it is taro that they sell here under the name of callaloo.  I rush to my computer to try to find the two girls on Facebook to tell them not to eat it like spinach.  I find one, but not the other and ask her to pass on the information to the one I could not find on Facebook.

My conclusions are this:

1. I don’t know what in the world made me even question what type of plant was in the fridge.  No clue where the thought even started!
2. I can’t believe nothing happened the night I made couscous.  I handled it barehanded and evidently cooked it enough to get rid of the toxins.
3. At this point I was sure I’d killed my two friends on the beach because I basically told them to buy callaloo and eat it like you would spinach, including raw in a salad.

I just so happened to see the girls Monday after not hearing back from the one on Facebook.  Turns out she did buy some callaloo at the store and took a nice bite of it to try it out!  She said her whole mouth and throat burned like crazy and she just assumed she had an allergic reaction to it because it eventually went away.  I felt so incredibly bad when she told me!  I realize it wasn’t truly my fault, but I still felt partially responsible.  So I didn’t kill anyone with my lack of cooking knowledge here, but I sure had some close calls last week!