From time to time I’ve gotten comments on my write ups about the different cuisines I have explored. Mostly they are complimentary, but sometimes people are very offended at what I’ve written and want to set me straight. For example, I got a lot of hate mail regarding my write up of Appalachian cuisine – apparently a newspaper columnist there organized a letter writing campaign to let me know how offended they were at my thoughts. My Assyrian menu has also generated some mail from Assyrians who tell me that I did it all wrong. They’ve promised to send me recipes so I can cook a real Assyrian meal, but so far I haven’t gotten any.
But no individual recipe has received more comments than my recipe for coucou, a cornmeal dish eaten throghout the Caribbean. Apparently I did it all wrong. Here is the last e-mail I’ve gotten on the subject.
“Of course you, probably a white woman, would find the dish bland but if you were a native you would understand that cou-cou is not a stand alone dish. The national dish of Barbados is “cou-cou and flying fish” and like mash potatoes and gravy, the flavor of the cou-cou comes from the gravy of the fish. If you do not have flying fish, you could use any other steamed fish, liver, etc. anything that makes a good gravy.
If the picture on your website is the result of what you made no wonder it was bland cause it looks like poop which means you probably made it wrong.
Happy recipe hunting but next time maybe you should stick to hamburgers and french fries.”
15 responses to “Cou Cou”