Victoria Food Fest - Grenada

A short beer stop on the way to the food fest.

Jon ordering a cup of sour sop ice cream

Drummers from Victoria and other nearby villages

Young dancers from Victoria

"You've got to go to the food fest!" Shade Man, our favorite bus driver, kept telling us. "This is the only place where you can try ALL of the local Grenadian foods!" We figured we better give it a try, so we gathered up two busloads of cruisers and headed to Victoria on the northwest part of the island. The Victoria Food Fest is only held on the last Saturday of each month, and the people from Victoria prepare and sell all of the traditional foods of Grenada. People from all around the island make their way there each month. In addition to eating just about everything you can imagine, there is entertainment and people selling handmade items. With Grenada's Independence Day coming up next week, this Food Fest was PACKED with partiers!

The drive is a long one, winding all along the west coast, so about about half way there Shade Man stopped to let us all get a beer at a little store on the street in a small village. The store is built right in front of the owners house, so they all came out to watch us file out of the buses and sell us some beer. "It's 3 beers for $10 EC!" Shade Man yells to all of us. Everyone lines up to get something to drink. After drinking and visiting we continued on to Victoria.

We arrived right as everything was getting geared up for the big night. We wandered by all the food tents to see what was written on the chalkboard menus.......goat, turtle, MONKEY, chicken, manacou (possom), fish, crayfish waters, Man Waters, Curried Bull Pissle (yes, it is what you think), conch, breadfruit pie, yam pie, macaroni pie, smoked fish pizza, sour sop ice cream......and the options went on and on! We sampled food here and there, but we just couldn't bring ourselves to try monkey, curried bull pissle or manacou. We finished our evening with sour sop ice cream and then hung out in the street being entertained by local drummers and dancers.

With the long drive back ahead of us we decided not to stay for the last entertainment of the night, a Grenadian Comedian. Too bad, that would have been good! We arrived back to where our dingies were tied at 11:30 and it was midnight when we got back to our boats. Shade Man was right...the Victoria Food Fest is definitely a place to get ALL of the local foods!