AN EXTRAORDINARY ISLAND TOUR WITH CUTTY



MARCH 30, 2014

LOCAL FISHERMEN GATHERING NETS

CASHEW ON THE TREE

Since the Oil Down Rod and I have spent another day with Cutty touring the island.  We left Secret Harbor Marina about 9am with 3 other people.  It was a long day taking the main road that circles the island.  Grenada is about 12 miles wide and 21 miles long.  Cutty is the consummate guide, stopping frequently to show us many of the locally grown fruits and nuts, most on the side of the road.  The farmers who raise bananas do not plant a field of bananas.  They plant the field (on the side of a mountain) with everything that grows  naturally here.  We found bananas, plantains, almonds, nutmeg, and cashews all growing along with trees of mahogany, cinnamon and more in the same space they are farming.

CASHEW NUTS AND NUTMEG
 

Some of the things we found interesting were the way cashews, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and cacao grow.  The cacao beans grow in large pods 8 or 9 inches long that hang off the trunk and branches all over the tree. When you break it open it is filled with cacao beans covered in what appears to be white slimy yogurt looking stuff.  The locals suck off this covering, not something we enjoyed in our mouth.  The bean is dried and possessed to make cocoa , cocoa butter and chocolate.

NUTMEG WITH MACE

Cashew nuts grow on top of the fruit and are ready when the fruit turns dark rose color.  I can now see why cashews are so costly.  One nut to a fruit.  Nutmeg is the seed in the center of an almost round light yellow fruit which splits open when ripe.  You can then see the nutmeg covered in a red stringy layer which feels like plastic.  This red covering is the spice mace. 

SCRAPE THE
CINNAMON LIMB

Along the way we stopped at the roadside many times.  A small shrubby tree had clusters of light pink flowers and attached to them was the very small clove.  And last there was cinnamon which grows as part of a tree.  This medium sized tree has smooth bark.  Rod got right into this job to learn the process of harvesting from the tree.


TAPPING

CUTTING AROUND

1.  To harvest the cinnamon you must cut off a limb of the tree and scrape off the bark down past the

SKINNING THE BARK

green covering on wood.   2.   Next he took a machete and made a shallow cut around the limb about every 4 inches the length of the limb. 
3.  What came next was a surprise.  The tool of choice was a beer bottle.  With the bottle he gently tapped the outside of the limb all over causing the outside to release moisture. 
4.  He then carefully made a cut lengthwise and inserted his pocket knife under the first lst layer of wood.  He carefully peeled the piece away moving around the limb.  Mmmmmm the cinnamon aroma was everywhere.
5.  After repeating the process all the way down the limb. .
6.  The small pieces were placed flat out in the sun.  Almost immediately it began to curl and in the end we had cinnamon sticks made from the limb of the cinnamon tree.

 

OUR CINNAMON STICKS

Mmmmmmmmm......

We stopped in the chocolate factory and the nutmeg factory to see how it is commercially processed and stopped for lunch in a small restaurant overlooking the water.  By the end of the day we had more information than we could possible absorb.  The tour was great, we learned many new things about the island of Grenada.  Cutty is so full of information we really should have taken a recorder.  It was after 6pm when we finally loaded into our dinghy and were headed back to a quiet evening on It's Perfect.