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CUISINE

Rice is the staple diet of many Mauritians although it has to be imported. It is also the main feature of Creole food and along with side dishes such as bredes (a type of spinach), chutneys and pcikles is usually served with a curry, rougaille, fricassee or moulouktani. The latter, whose name has the same root as the word ‘mulliatawny’ is a curried soup made with small crabs and pieces of meat. Rougaille is made of tomatoes and onions sauteed with thyme, garlic, ginger and chilli (although the local version is made with the smaller pommmes d’amour in pleace of tomatoes), plus a meat or seafood ingredient such as sausage, salted fish, shrimps and prawns. Bredes is a bouillon made with the leaves and shoots of certain vegetables, while vindaye combines vinegar, garlic saffron and other spices in the preparation of fish and meats.

Indian cuisine centres mainly on curries and their side dishes; birani, a delicately spiced meat dish with a yoghurt-based sauce, is another favourite. Snacks such as poppadoms, samoasa and chilli bites are often available from street stalls. Traditionally, spices in Indian dishes are crushed each day on a rock in the back yard, called a roche carri, so their full flavour is imparted to the food.

Chinese cooking traditions too remain failthful to their roots; familiar dishes such as pork fooyong and sweet and sour fish are common. The Chinese also eat sea urchins and sea cucumbers, sausage-like creatures which are often seen in the shallows.

Top of the list of local delicacies are smoked marlin, which tastes somwhat like a smoked salmon and heart of palm, which is either boiled or eaten raw in a ‘millionaire’s salad’. Venison and wild boar, along with smaller game, are offered at many restaurants and are definitely worth triying. Octopus, prawns, shrimps, oysters and crabs crown a selection of tasty local fish that have intriguing names: old red, captain, sacred dog, etc. Notable for their novelty value as much as for their refreshing flavour, carved pineapples (served lollipop-style on the fruit’s stalk) are often sold by vendors at the roadisde and on the beaches.