A round-up of some blog articles about Reunion

While the articles on this blog are written directly by myself, I also work as professional French to English translator and I recently finished translating an interesting series of blog articles about Reunion written by Carole Hoareau. Aimed at tourists to the island, there's lots of useful information in these articles so I thought I'd collect them here for easy access. Most of the titles are self-explanatory and they're listed by order of publication on the blog, first to last. All photos are from the blog.

• How to eat like a local in Reunion

food in Reunion

• Piton des Neiges and Piton de la Fouraise: the origins of Reunion Island

• Cilaos, where tradition and nature meet

• Salazie, land of waterfalls and creole houses

Salazie

• Where to find the best natural pools in Reunion

Bassin des Cormorans

• Le Maïdo, a unique vantage point over Reunion Island

Le Maïdo

• What’s the best time of year to visit Reunion Island?

frost in Reunion

• 5 unforgettable hikes in Reunion Island

• No time to lose? Here are 3 tours to make the most of a one-day trip to Reunion

road in the south of Reunion

• Useful information for your trip to Reunion Island

• 10 great reasons to go to Reunion IslandGetting around Reunion: an alternative to Uber

an eruption of Piton de la Fournaise volcano 

• Family Reunion: 7 child-friendly activities

Kelonia turtle sanctuary, Saint Leu

• 6 reasons to visit Reunion Island while in Mauritius

Mafate

• 8 unusual accommodation options in Reunion Island

Kaz Insolite, Reunion Island

Carri baba figue

Severe Tropical Storm Fakir barrelling past Reunion recently meant that we found ourselves with three stalks of bananas blown over. The bananas were inedible as they weren't ripe enough, but we were able to recover three banana flowers, known locally as baba figue, to make a popular local dish: carri baba figue (carri is the general name for Réunion's 'national' dish, normally consisting of meat or fish cooked with onions, garlic, turmeric (safran), thyme, salt, pepper and sometimes tomatoes. Normally served with white rice, rougail, lentils and traditionally leafy green brèdes).

three baba figues 

The first step was to peel the purple outer layers off the baba figues, leaving the central white core.

peeled baba figues

close-up of one of the peeled baba figues

They can they be chopped up and put in a bowl of water with salt for 24 hours. This helps get rid of their bitter taste.

chopped up baba figues in a bowl of water with salt

The next day after draining the chopped baba figue, slice up about 300 grams of boucané (smoked pork meat) and 300 grams of smoked sausages and let it fry in the bottom of the pan with a little olive oil for 10 minutes.

boucané in the process of being chopped

chopped sausages and boucané in the pan

You will also need to dice 3 tomatoes and one large onion.

dicing the tomatoes 

This should be added to the meat in the pan along with a teaspoonful of turmeric and two pinches of salt.

adding turmeric to the other ingredients 

Cover and cook for 10 minutes, before adding the baba figue and 50 cl of water; leave to cook for 20 minutes over medium heat.

cover and leave to cook

Stir half way through cooking.

stir half way through cooking

Serve hot with white rice, rougail, lentils and brèdes (leafy greens). Bon appétit!

Finished carri baba figue!

You might also like to read:

• Rougail saucisses recipe
• Garden flowers & fruit
• Some useful words in Réunion Island
• My list of unique eating places
• Buddhist temple cooking: Part 1 and Part 2
• Wasp larvae

Vanilla: the book

Vanilla: travels in search of the Ice Cream Orchid is a book by writer, journalist and broadcaster Tim Ecott that was first published in 2004. It explores the history and current cultivation of vanilla, the world's most versatile flavour, and traces its story from its natural origins on the Gulf Coast of Mexico to Madagascar, Tahiti, Reunion, Seychelles and around the botanical collections of Europe. As someone who lives in Reunion, not far from La Vanilleraie, and who has also translated texts for a vanilla plantation, I was sure the book would interest me.

cover of
Vanilla: Travels in Search of the Ice Cream Orchid

The book intertwines fact-finding mission, travelogue, natural history and biological detective story. I learnt a number of things about vanilla:

• There are over 25000 species of orchids, and counting. Of all the orchids the vanilla family is the only one that produces an agriculturally valuable crop
• Vanilla is the most labour-intensive agricultural product in the world.
• Unlike other agricultural crops, the amount of vanilla beans available each year is comparatively small - approximately 2000 metric tons.
• More than half the world's vanilla beans end up in the United States. Half of those are used in the dairy industry.
• Under the right conditions, an established vanilla vine is capable of long life in the wild, perhaps 1000 years.
• Vanilla is the only economic area in which Madagascar has an opportunity to influence a world market. The island consistently accounts for half of the world's vanilla production.

The book follows a roughly chronological history of vanilla, starting with four chapters set in Mexico, then after a chapter in the botanical collections of early 19th century England, there are a further four chapters set in Reunion, where he discusses Edmond Albius' contribution to vanilla. I found this especially interesting as although I knew of the 12-year old slave who was the first to discover how to pollinate vanilla flowers had died in poverty, I knew little else about him. After a chapter in Tahiti the final four chapters take place in Madagascar, albeit with most of one of the chapters examining vanilla's importance in the US food industry. 

Edmond Albius (source)

References are also made to the Comoros (... notorious for its tally of coups d'état and mercenary-led invasions. 19 coups in less than a quarter of a century is still something of a record, I believe), and the Seychelles where the author lived for a time. He explains he chose this latter destination as he had developed an obsession with scuba diving and I enjoyed his remark "underwater I could always escape the claustrophobia of living in a society where everyone knew everyone else's business". He also refers to the south-west Indian Ocean as a region that "other English-speaking journalists didn't bother with [at the time] because they considered it too peripheral to world events. Whenever I made repeated visits to the islands, colleagues would sneer slightly at the idea that I was 'reporting from the beach again'."

vanilla flower, seen at St-Philippe

The author knows how to write and makes his subject matter very readable, however I did find some digressions less interesting or wonder whether they weren't just padding. In the penultimate chapter he also makes an amateurish mistake referring to cyclone wind speeds (almost 200 miles an hour) as the speed at which a cyclone (Hudah in this particular instance) was travelling. However all in all, a worthwhile book for anyone with an interest in the subject and destinations discussed.

Reunion's coat of arms shows a vanilla vine

Further reading:

• Réunion - In Search of the Ice-Cream Orchid by  Michael O'Donnabhain
• Vanilla fever by Wendell Steavenson in The Economist's 1843 magazine (June/July 2019 issue)

wild vanilla growing at St Philippe

Related blog posts:

• Grand Hazier & La Vanilleraie - visit of this vanilla production centre which is 2 kilometres as the crow flies from where I live
• Hiking in the shadow of the volcano - a hike near St Philippe which is a prime vanilla-growing area, much also grows wild here.

wild vanilla growing at St Philippe

Rougail saucisses recipe

Rougail saucisses is one of my favourite Creole meals. Saucisse is French for ‘sausage’ and rougail normally refers to the hot salsa condiment that accompanies all dishes in Reunion – here it’s used for the name of a main dish because Rougail Saucisses is traditionally quite spicy.

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 750g of sausages (normal or smoked)
• 5 onions
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 8 tomatoes
• 4 or 5 chillies (optional)
• 1 piece of ginger
• 2 tablespoons of oil

Rougail saucisses cooking over an open fire at Le Maïdo

1. Boil sausages in a large pan of water for 15 minutes then chop into pieces.
2. Dice onions and tomatoes.
3. Crush and blend together salt, garlic, ginger and chillies to make a paste (use a pestle and mortar if you have one).
4. Fry the sausage pieces for 5 minutes in a pan, then put them to one side.
5. In the same pan, add the oil and brown the onions for one minute, then add the garlic and ginger, stir for two minutes, followed by the tomatoes and salt; mix everything together.
6. Finally, add the sausage pieces and stir.
7. Add a little water if necessary, then leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

Normally eaten with rice and lentils or haricot beans.

There you have it – a tasty and easy Creole meal from Reunion!

This post was originally published on the Welcome to Reunion Island blog.

Rhum arrangé

Most of Reunion's farmland is covered in sugar cane, which is transformed into sugar ... and rum!  Particularly popular locally is rhum arrangé which literally means 'arranged rum' but can be loosely translated as 'macerated flavoured rum'. One or several ingredients such as vanilla, bananas, cinnamon, geranium, lychees, ginger are added to a bottle of white rum and left to macerate for several weeks or months (the actual length of time depends on the ingredient(s)). It's drunk as an after-dinner drink and most homes in Réunion always have a bottle or two at least; most restaurants will offer you a shot after dinner. 

A week past Sunday we were at a restaurant at St Bernard (a district of La Montagne, Saint Denis) which is located in part of an old leprosarium. I hadn't been back there recently but I remembered they had the biggest collection of rhum arrangé I've ever seen, and I wasn't disappointed when I saw it again. The photos below show just part of the collection, which apparently numbers more than 300 bottles. As well as the usual ingredients there are some more unusual ones, such as chewing-gum or grass snake!

pomander-like rhums arrangés on the bottom shelf

part of the vast collection

note the large bottle of honeycomb rhum arrangé 
in the lower middle of the photo

Cheers! Santé !

Wasp larvae

Here on Reunion fried wasp larvae are a local delicacy which are often eaten around Easter time, traditionally during Lent. My husband and I don't cook them ourselves, but when we come across a nest full of larvae in our garden we call one of our neighbours who is quite happy to come and 'relieve' us of them!

Local wasps (Polistes hebraeus) on a nest (source)

The traditional method of harvesting a nest is to smoke off the wasps using a cloth on the end of a choka stem (or broom handle these days). The smoke makes the wasps fly away, but doesn't kill them and they will live to make another nest elsewhere. Nests can sell for €100-200/kg, that's including the weight of the nest itself, even though it's only the larvae inside that are eaten.

A small wasps' nest and some larvae

The larvae first need to be cooked in a small amount of water with salt and pepper added, then once they've turned white they should be taken out of the water, dried, and only then fried in oil with garlic. Due to the small quantity they're generally eaten as a snack or a starter rather than as a meal course. Bon appetit!

Fried wasps (source)

Further reading:

• Exotic food, guess what?

Garden production

First home-grown production from our prolific bananas since we arrived back on Reunion from South Korea.

mmm!

Maido Forest Adventure Park

Last week we went with a group to "La forêt de l'aventure" which is a site near the Maïdo with tree top trails. Great fun was had by all!

There are lots of zip lines.

The course consists of several trees linked by different acrobatic elements made of rope and wood.

But also lots of trickier obstacles.

It takes about 2 - 2½ hours to do the whole course.

This one involved launching yourself on a rope towards a net:

Afterwards we had a Creole picnic with lots of different carris.

rougail saucisses (a carri with sausages)

carri ti-jacques (with jack-fruit and smoked meat)

If don't know Reunion Island and want to find out more here's a link.

Buddhist temple food cooking Part 1

We were filmed for TV cooking temple food at Gilsangsa Buddhist temple in Seoul in December 2009, and the programme was broadcast on TV in May 2010 for Buddha's birthday.

Buddhist temple food cooking Part 2

Buddhist temple food cooking in Seoul, South Korea Video Part 2

From champacs on Vimeo.