Peas and Hominy

Peas and hominy is the national dish and it is not the rice and peas of the wider Caribbean: hominy here means cracked corn, cooked slowly with pigeon peas, salt pork or bacon, onion, thyme and coconut milk until it thickens into something between a porridge and a pilaf. It comes with fried or steamed fish, or with chicken, and it is Sunday food above all. It reflects a place with thin soil and no rice-growing tradition, where corn and imported salt meat did the work. It is rarely on resort menus and finding it means eating where residents do.

What you actually see

• Cracked corn hominy - the base, quite unlike rice and peas.
• Pigeon peas - cooked into it with salt pork and coconut milk.
• With steamed fish - the standard accompaniment.
• Sunday - the day it is properly made.

When to go

Year-round, with Sunday the traditional day. Local restaurants in Blue Hills, Five Cays and the settlements on the family islands are where to find it. Resort restaurants rarely serve it.

Honest expectations

It is almost never on tourist menus and finding it takes asking around. It is plain, heavy and made with salt pork, so it is not vegetarian. The texture divides opinion. Restaurant versions made ahead and held warm go stodgy.

Nearby

Blue Hills and Five Cays on Providenciales; the settlements on North and Middle Caicos.