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Bocas del Toro and Caribbean Cooking

After crossing into Panama from Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, my first destination was Bocas del Toro archipelago. Bocas del Toro is an archipelago made up of 6 large islands and many little cays in the Northern Caribbean coast of Panama. The islands are inhabited predominantly by Creoles (who are descendents of African slaves) but there are also plenty of Chinese (who own all the supermarkets. I doubt you will find a better range of soy sauce anywhere else in the world outside China - most supermarkets have almost a whole isle dedicated to it), Gringos and European expats (who own many of the restaurants, bars and dive centers etc) and mainland Panamanians who don’t seem to own much at all.

I arrived at Bocas Town, the capital of the region from Changuinola, a crusty agricultural town on the mainland near the Costa Rican Border. Changuinola sits in the middle of a hot banana growing region and while I was there the town was swooped by crop duster after crop dumping their toxic load on the surrounding crop plantations. My one night in Changuinola was spent at what I’m sure was the local brothel (rooms are rented by the hour and mine wasn’t ready until 8pm). Still, it was only $5 and there really didn’t seem to be much else on offer.

The trip to the Bocas islands from Changuinola was really beautiful. First, a 1-hour bus ride through rainforest covered mountains interspersed with wide stony crystal clear rivers and then a water-taxi from Almirante, a rundown but picturesque coastal town, to the town of Bocas del Toro on the island of Colon. On Bocas, I took a room at Mondu Taitu and very quickly the "Mondu" became my second home. In all my travels thus far, never had I seen such a wonderfully complete kitchen in a hostel and the night I arrived the kitchen was in full swing with some amazing cooking underway. Orin, the loud Israeli with a very dirty mind was cooking a spectacular assortment of dishes for a group of about 10 people who had all chipped in with the expenses.

The view from the water-taxi terminal in Almirante

Small huts on the edge of the water on the way to Bocas Island

A view of Bocas Town as I arrived in the water-taxi

Mondu Taitu Hostel, Bocas del Toro, Panama

The meal looked and smelled so good that I asked if I could be involved in the following nights cooking. On my minuscule travelers budget, which doesn’t extend to eating out anywhere but the cheapest restaurants and certainly doesn’t allow for anything remotely gourmet, this was a great opportunity eat some yummy and exotic food. The following night Daniel (one of Mondu´s owners) and Joey (a friend of the owners who was building his own restaurant on the island) were set to do a Brazilian/Argentinian cookup. I had no idea what a Brazilian cookup but already my mouth was watering.

Kate (a guest) making her awesome chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce

Sitting around the “everything table” in Mondu Taitu eating a leisurely lunch

Daniel and Joey turned out to be inspired cooks and the following night’s cookup was spectacular. I made a fun mini-cookumentary of the evening (8 minutes long) which I think captures the vibe of the evening well. To See the video click here. It was made with my little digital photo camera. Some of the recipes featured in the Cookumentary (such as the Chimichurri dipping sauce and banana bread with coconut pudding) can be found by following their links. During my 3-week stay in Bocas del Toro, there were many great dinners like this one. Amazingly (for me), I didn’t actually cook a communal meal until almost my last day on the island (it was a pizza night and you will read about it further down).

The idea of the Mondu Taitu's owners, Gringos Dan, Daniel and Dave, who are all college friends in their early 20`s, was to create a hostel with a laid back and comfortable vibe that would induce travelers to stay a little longer than they planned. I stayed at Mondu for one week, after which time I started to run out of money and had to move to a nearby rusta-reggae campsite. Amazingly the guys allowed me to keep using the kitchen to prepare my food so I was often around Mondu and over time we became closer and closer friends. Many evenings my dear friend Laura (who is a college friend that lives with Dan, Daniel and Dave) and I would practice yoga and Pilates on Mondu’s roof and Smead (Daniel) and I exchanged mutual interest in each other’s cooking.

The owners of Mondu Taitu - Dan, Dave, Daniel and Laura (from left to right)

While in Bocas, I passed some of my time learning about the local Creole cuisine and managed to make friends with some colorful locals who shared some of their prized recipes with me. One such friend was Jonas, who bakes a special coconut bread called Johnnycake, which he sells from the basket in the front of his bicycle. Johnnycakes are a traditional Creole (African-Caribbean) food and many people make them on the island but in my opinion Jonas’ are the best. He makes them with fresh coconut milk and bakes them in a cast aluminum pot.

Jonas posing with his Johnnycakes

Jonas with his bike and Johnnycakes. Ready to hit the town.

Mmmmmm…..Johnnycakes!

Jonas is very proud of his Johnnycake recipe and mistook my interest in them as an attempt by rival bakers to steal his recipe by sending a spy to infiltrate his kitchen. Still, as is the case with most proud cooks, he was flattered by my interest in ‘his’ Johnnycakes and in the end agreed to share his recipe with me (and you). Johnnycakes are traditionally eaten on their own or with cheese or a piece of fish. Why are they called Johnnycakes? Watch the little documentary I made on Jonas and find out.

The one of the Bocas Island from the water

The street where Jonas lives in street in Bocas Town

Another set of recipes I picked up while on the island are for "Banana Puddin", a heavy banana slice made with coconut milk and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla and "Banana Cake", a moist and spongy relative of Banana Puddin that is much lighter and cake like. Both recipes came from Irma and her husband (and my name sake), Martin James Binns. Irma and Martin own a very clean and orderly guest house in the back streets of Bocas Town which I stayed in for one night on returning to Bocas from Boquete, a cool mountain town where I took a few days "vacation" before starting my yoga course.

NOTE: These recipes haven’t been made by me yet and are still in the quantities that Irma and Martin use in their guesthouse and will make mountains of cake. To make less, just halve or quarter etc the quantities and please email me and let me know how it turns out.

Banana Puddin’ (puddin de banano)
Recipe by Irma Bernard de Binns and Martin James Binns

While the banana cake (which you will read about shortly) is really good and distinctive in its own right, in the end it is cake and similar to other cakes you have had before. The banana puddin’, on the other hand, stands out as something different. It is a thick, heavy slab of banana mush and until I learnt the recipe I had no idea what was in it (except for the fact in had banana in it of course). Eat two slices of banana cake before your dinner and not only are you likely to no longer have any room for dinner, you are also like to feel full until the next day. A slice of banana puddin on Bocas Island will set you back 20 cents. All I can say is that I ate way too many slices of banana pudding!

This recipe will make 2 large trays of puddin (enough to kill a large ox, if eaten all at once) ...see full recipe

A local customer of Irma and Martin’s “models” the Banana Puddin

The Banana Puddin in all its glory!

Home-style Banana Cake (Dulce de Banano)
Recipe by Irma Bernard de Binns and Martin James Binns

This Banana Cake tastes easily as good as it looks (see photo below). It is similar to other banana cakes you have probably tried however the coconut milk, spices, rum and dried fruit give it a special Caribbean flavor. Best eaten while listening to reggae music. ...see full recipe

Home-style Banana Cake

Irma and Martin (color coordinated) prepare Banana Cake in their kitchen

The final recipe I leant while on Bocas Island is for a scrumptious sweet coconut pastry called ‘Guisada’, which in Spanish simply means “preparation”. I became addicted to the Guisadas sold in Don Chichos restaurant, which is a restaurant/servery where locals are tourists alike gather to eat really yummy (but not particularly healthy) island food (these are some of the dishes found in Don Chichos restaurant: rice and beans cooked in coconut milk (see my recipe for ‘Rice and Bins’), patacones (fried plantain pieces), fried chicken and fish, a sweet coconut milk and corn drink and many little cakes and pastries including of course, Guisadas. Don Chicos wouldn’t give me the recipe for their Guisadas, so I asked the locals if anyone else knew how to make them. It turns out that Guisadas are a traditional island sweet that many locals make them in their homes and thus there were lots of people who knew how to make them (or knew someone who did).

After much searching, the night before I left Bocas my searches led me to Mayela, who I was told made some the best Guisadas. Mayela lives in way out part of Bocas Town, and was curling her hair when I knocked. Note surprisingly, she was quite surprised to get an evening visit from a shaved headed Australian wanting her Guisada recipe but never the less she happily shared it with me. I wanted to take her picture but she didn’t want to be photographed with rollers in her hair. Unfortunately, I also forgot to take a picture of the Guisadas themselves so you will have to wait until I make them, photograph the result and then post it on the web in order to see what they look like. But trust me, they rock! (Maybe you could make the recipe, photograph the result and send me the picture and I will post it with the recipe!)

Guisadas
By Mayela of Bocas del Toro

Guisadas, a traditional sweet on Bocas Island, are scrumptous little pastry tarts that are filled with a yummy spiced coconut mush. I was introduced to guisadas at Don Chicos restaurant in Bocas Town, Panama. This recipe comes from Mayelas, a long standing guisada maker on Bocas Island. Mayela's guisadas look easy to make but my guess is that they will be even easier to eat! The recipe looks quite big so you may wish to half it or quarter it. ...see full recipe.

Local boyz pose for my camera

The PIZZA NIGHT!
23rd of March 2006

Tonight, well actually last night (it is now 3am as I write this) I organized a pizza night at Mondu Taitu. Mondu Taitu (in case the haven’t read it already), is a fantastic backpacker’s hostel run by 3 gringos in the Bocas del Toro archipelago on the Caribbean coast of Panama. The hostel is a winner, especially in regards to its kitchen, which is by far the best I have ever seen in a hostel and inspires amazing cooking.

Anyway……back to the pizza night. I wanted to organize a pizza night because I thought it would be fun and something everybody, including “non-cooking minded people”, could get into. The plan was simple – I would make the dough (I was a pizza chef in another life), Joska and Francisco (two Italians I met at the hostel) would make the sauce and everybody who wanted to be involved would provide their own pizza toppings and create their own pizza (and chip in $1 to cover our expenses for the sauce and the dough – Please remember, I am currently a poor backpacker!)

I have to say that the night was a great success in almost all regards and it surprised us all to see the variations of pizzas that came out of a hostel full of world travelers.

Note: All pizzas mentioned below also included tomato sauce and cheese unless otherwise stated. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to photograph the pizzas as I was too caught up in the baking.

The Swedes shocked the purist Italians by putting banana, onion, curry powder, tomato and basil all on the same pizza (I didn’t get to taste this exotic pizza but by all accounts it was very tasty).

The Germans also shunned the orthodox, opting for a ‘veggie-tuna bumper combination’ that was stacked high with tinned tuna, grated carrot, tinned corn and fresh tomato. I can personally vouch that it was excellent despite its salad like appearance (since writing this letter I have come to travel with more Germans and all I have met so far use tinned corn extensively in their “Italian cooking” (pizza, pasta etc). What’s more they think it is completely “traditional Italian” to do so!).

Then there were the 3 traditional pizzas from the Italian purists Francisco and Joska, which were succinct and to the point. The first one was an elegant tomato, basil and mozzarella pizza, the second, a simple tomato and caper pizza and the third, a rustic salt and e.v. olive oil pizza bread (this one contained no cheese or salsa).

I, on the other hand, went with a roast pumpkin and pesto pizza, which was nasty good and in fact, almost landed me with an invitation for sex from one admirer who claimed it was “########”. I thought that ‘pumpkin and pesto’ was a traditional Italian pizza combination, however I was assured by Francisco and Joska that it was definitely not! (perhaps it is a uniquely Australian variation??) It amusing to notice that each country, Australia included, seems to have its own way of making foreign dishes and which they think are traditional.

Then of course there were an array of more common variations, which included ham and pineapple pizzas, salami pizzas and one chicken and avocado pizza (I don’t remember what “nationality” it was). …Not to mention the desert pizzas engineered by yours truly (I’ll get onto them later).

Travelers prepare their own special pizza toppings during the pizza night

Francisco, the Italian told me that in Naples, where pizza originated from, there are only two pizzas you can buy. One is called Margarita and is topped with fresh tomato and buffalo mozzarella (I asked him if buffalo mozzarella really comes from buffalos and he told me it did – African water buffalos to be precise. That is why it is so expensive! Only kidding! I didn’t know it, but Italy has buffalos too). The other pizza simply has fresh tomato and capers and no cheese (I don’t know if it has its own special name). According to Francisco, these two pizzas have been made for centuries.

Francisco and Joska’s tomato sauce was really tasty and if they give me the recipe I will include here as soon as possible. Yes, they emailed it to here so click here to view it! They also have a great website of their travels. Click here to see it.

My dough was also a winner and one of the yummiest crusts I have tasted. It was so tasty, that I got praise for it the next day as I was walking down the street. It is based on a recipe I found on the Internet the night we made pizzas. I modified it slightly by adding a little less honey and olive oil and substituting roughly a third of the white flour with wholemeal flour.

Pizza Dough Recipe
(I thick it makes enough for about 6 pizzas)

During the years that I have been made pizza I have tried lots of different doughs but this dough is probably the tastiest I have ever made. Aside from the standard dough ingredients it has honey, olive oil and a little wholemeal flour. I doubt whether it would pass the Joska and Francisco test of ‘traditionality’ but that certainly didn’t stop them eating it.

Note: If you want to make really yummy pizzas at home but this recipe seems too daunting, complex or time consuming, don’t worry because there are plenty of alternatives. Firstly, most bakeries, given a days notice, will sell you a lump of bread dough which makes excellent pizza bases. When you get home simply roll it out and presto, a great pizza base with no effort! Secondly, pita breads make great pizza bases and are easy for kids to make pizzas with (actually….they make it easier for adults too!) as they keep their shape better than regular dough (pizza was the one of the first dishes I ever cooked and my first pizzas where made on pita bread bases). ...see full recipe

Pizza Challenges!

Normally one of the hardest things about making a good pizza at home is getting the base crispy. Restaurants/pizza houses achieve this by cooking their pizzas in an oven with a stone or brick base. To solve this problem for home cooks, many specialty cooking stores now sell special “pizza tiles” which you place in your regular oven and cook the pizza on (I had one and it worked really well). Unfortunately there are no cooking stores on Bocas del Toro, let alone specialty cooking stores (and besides these special stones are expensive). There are however some building-supply stores and in order to solve the challenge a crispy base I bought a large floor tile ($2.50), cleaned it well, turned it upside down and cooked the pizzas on it. It worked just as well as a proper ‘pizza stone’.

The next trick to making a good pizza is getting the oven hot enough. Pizzas should ideally cook in a super hot oven and will only take a few minutes to cook (turn your oven on max and try not to open the door for any longer than necessary). Even with the Mondu oven on max, the pizzas were still cooking too slowly (after all we had over 30 to make!), so I resorted to cooking them first on a flat metal plat which I placed on the gas stove top burners and then putting them in the oven to finish them off. This way we could cook 3 pizzas at a time (one on metal plate and two in the oven) and the bases were all more or less perfectly cooked (except in the opinion of the puritan Italians who explained that a ‘traditional pizza’ is barely cooked and has a crust that is not crunchy but undercooked and “doughy”).

As we had so many pizzas to make I coordinated the oven and made sure the pizzas came in and out of the oven at the right times. I also showed off and spun peoples dough in the air (this makes the dough thinner in the middle and thicker on the edges so it cooks better, and impresses the chicks!). After a while we got a rhythm up and all in all we churned out 35 pizzas in around 3 hours.

Here I am in the Mondu kitchen giving a demonstration on how to roll out the pizza dough

We finished the evening (and what was left of the dough) with a couple of desert pizzas: One had pineapple, banana, cinnamon and Hershey’s chocolate sauce topping and the other had a grated coconut base (which was essentially the same as Guisada topping – see Guisada recipe above), banana, cinnamon and chocolate pieces (of course you don’t use tomato sauce or cheese!). They were a really good way to make a simple and yummy desert and use up the left over dough at the same time.

Close up of the desert pizza (can you spot the chocolate?)

Left of pizza with a few steamed veggies makes a yummy meal

Here we are eating left over desert pizza the following day

For me, the highlight of the night was having everyone involved (about 32 people ate) and seeing the many amazing and yummy pizza variations. Pizza is great because virtually everyone likes it, it is cheap to make and it is simple enough that even non-cooks can make it (at least once the sauce and dough are made. If making those intimidate you, you could always buy dough from a bakery (it works the same) or use pita bread and tomato sauce from a jar).

Philosophy

If I have one misgiving about the whole night, it is that I would have liked to enjoy it more. Yes I enjoyed it, however I let myself get so wound up in the baking and coordinating of the pizzas that I went into semi-auto pilot. I was doing something I really loved but without the presence of mind to really enjoy it. For example, I tried other people’s pizzas but I was so busy cooking that I didn’t really stop, draw breath and pause and really taste them consciously (I didn’t do my regular prayer – instead I more or less tipped them into my stomach with a few rushed chews!). I created something beautiful for everyone but it could have been more beautiful for me.

In the past I would have concluded that it didn’t really matter that I was too busy/focused to really enjoy the evening because what was important was that it was really enjoyable for everyone else. I gift to others, you might say! (after all I was in the kitchen from 5pm to 11:30pm). Now however, I feel differently. My goal now is be present and enjoy each moment no matter what I am doing. Life is too short to “miss” any of it. Also, we only have the right to work, not the fruits of our work. I take that to mean that in the end, it is impossible to know whether what we do “for” others really benefits them or makes them happy (they are responsible for their happiness after all, not us). The only person I can really make happy is myself and being happy for me has to do with deciding to live in the present and accept what is.

Thus I now strive to do things simply because they make me happy and to allow myself to really delight in them and not for reasons outside myself (even if they are ‘noble’ goals like teaching or serving others). That way, I have all the reward I need from the simple act of doing what I love (and loving what I do) and thus, need or expect nothing from others. That way, I give without needing to receive, which in many ways is a greater gift than giving and hoping for something in return. I have been practicing this for a while now and it is very hard work. I often sneakily want so thing in return from the other person, even if it is only recognition.

Anyway that is it from me for the moment. Since beginning this letter I have traveled to Colombia (Providencia Island) and am staying with a traditional healer who uses eggs to cure his patients. I look forward to telling you about this and other adventures (like crossing the Panama Canal in a sailboat) soon.

I love receiving your letters

Lots of love and light and hugs to you all

Namaste

Martin

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