COPPERWhat is the national dish of Dominica?
The national dish of Dominica is callaloo: a soup of young dasheen (taro) leaves cooked with okra, coconut milk and often salted meat or crab, then swizzled into a thick green purée. It was approved as the national dish in 2013 after a national survey, replacing mountain chicken, a frog dish taken off menus because the frog is now critically endangered.
What is Dominican callaloo?
In Dominica, callaloo is more soup than stew. Its base is the leaves of the dasheen, the plant whose root is the taro; spinach, tannia leaves or water spinach are sometimes used instead. Coconut milk is essential, along with green seasoning, garlic and onion, and the cooked soup is blended or swizzled until it is thick and creamy.
The basic version can be built up with crab or smoked meat, ground provisions and dumplings, and some cooks add a little pumpkin for sweetness. It is usually eaten with rice, dumplings or breadfruit.
How callaloo is made
Our callaloo recipe follows the Dominican method:
- Desalt the meat. Salted pigtail is boiled 10 minutes and drained, twice, then simmered 40 minutes in fresh water.
- Young leaves only. The tough midribs are stripped from 400 g of dasheen leaves. Older leaves stay itchy on the throat.
- Okra and pumpkin. The leaves go in with sliced okra and diced pumpkin for 20 minutes. The okra is the thickener.
- Aromatics and coconut. Onion, garlic, thyme and a whole scotch bonnet, then 400 ml of coconut milk, simmered uncovered 15 minutes.
- Swizzle, don't blend. The pot is beaten with a wooden lele, a swizzle stick, until the leaves break into a thick purée with some texture left. A blender gives a smooth soup that is not callaloo.
Why callaloo replaced mountain chicken
Before 2013, Dominica's best-known dish was mountain chicken: the legs of the crapaud, a giant frog (Leptodactylus fallax) found only on Dominica and Montserrat. According to Raymond Lawrence, deputy chairman of the National Emblems Committee, it was never really official, just accepted by Dominicans.
The frog collapsed. Its population fell by at least 80% between 1995 and 2004, hunting was banned in the late 1990s and fully prohibited in 2003, and the chytrid fungus, which reached Dominica in 2002, pushed it close to extinction within a year and a half. As Lawrence put it, the committee asked: "how can you have a dish that people cannot eat?"
The frog once lived on many islands of the Lesser Antilles, including Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Kitts and Nevis, but now survives only on Dominica and Montserrat. A captive breeding programme for the Dominica population ran from 2007 to 2017 and was abandoned after Hurricane Maria destroyed its facilities.
In 2013, a four-part survey of adults and children chose callaloo, which won by a wide margin. Copper keeps the mountain chicken recipe as a record of the dish, made with farmed frog legs only.
Is callaloo only Dominican?
No, and that was the main objection to the choice. Callaloo is also one of the national dishes of Trinidad and Tobago, and it is cooked in Grenada, Saint Lucia, Jamaica and Guyana, often with different greens. Jamaicans use amaranth under the same name, and Guyanese crab and callaloo soup is made without coconut milk.
The Trinidad version shows the difference. The Caribbean food writer Cynthia Nelson describes it as dasheen leaves, okra, crab or salt meat, onion, mild pimento peppers, hot pepper, green onion and thyme cooked low and slow in fresh coconut milk, served with dumplings, ground provisions, foo-foo or rice. It is thicker, closer to a stew.
Lawrence's answer was that Dominica's version is its own: a soup rather than a stew, based on dasheen leaves, with coconut milk as a required ingredient.
Other dishes to know from Dominica
Dominican cuisine mixes Kalinago, African, French and English roots. Crab backs are another Dominican speciality: land crab meat is picked, seasoned with lime, scallion, garlic, thyme and scotch bonnet, bound with breadcrumbs, packed back into the cleaned shells and browned at 200 °C for 12 to 15 minutes.
Green fig and saltfish, made with green bananas and salt cod, is another traditional meal, often served with boiled eggs or avocado. Bake and saltfish is eaten at breakfast, souse (pickled pork or chicken with lime and hot pepper) as a snack, and goat water, curried goat and pelau are popular.
Stewed agouti and manicou, a local opossum, are considered delicacies. Cocoa tea, made by boiling local cocoa sticks with cinnamon and bay leaves, is drunk at breakfast, and a sorrel drink brewed from roselle calyces is made at Christmas.
You will find all three Copper dishes on our page about the food of Dominica. For the neighbouring islands, see our guide to Caribbean food and the national dish of Saint Lucia.
The recipes
- Callaloo soup🇩🇲 Dominica · 2 hours and 5 minutes
Mountain chicken🇩🇲 Dominica · 4 hours and 35 minutes
Crab and dumplings🇩🇲 Dominica · 1 hour and 15 minutes
Questions people ask
When did callaloo become the national dish of Dominica?
In 2013. The National Emblems Committee approved it after a four-part national survey of adults and children.
Is mountain chicken still eaten in Dominica?
No. The mountain chicken frog is critically endangered and hunting it has been fully banned since 2003, so the dish has disappeared from legitimate menus.
How do you pronounce callaloo?
Callaloo is pronounced KAL-ə-LOO, with the stress on the last syllable.
What is callaloo made of in Dominica?
Young dasheen (taro) leaves, okra and coconut milk, with onion, garlic, thyme and green seasoning, often enriched with salted pork, crab or smoked meat.
What is served with callaloo?
Dominicans usually eat callaloo with rice, dumplings, breadfruit or boiled ground provisions.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of Dominica: 12 dishes to know
- What is the national dish of Antigua and Barbuda?
- What is the national dish of the Bahamas?
- What is the national dish of Barbados?
- What is the national dish of Cuba?
- What is the national dish of the Dominican Republic?