Barbados @ 50 - Privilege

"When you survey the contents of that pot, after you have taken off the lid and open-she-up, such a waft of historical and cultural goodness going to blow in your face! Such a strong reminder from the slave days, such a powerful smell of Barbadian hot-cuisine, is going to greet you that your mouth is bound to spring water and salivate, in a contemporaneous salvation of salivation." Austin Clarke, (Pigtails 'n Breadfruit).

The man referred to as the father of Independence in Barbados, the late Errol Walton Barrow, PC, QC, was a great Caribbean statesman, and from all accounts, he was an excellent cook too. He even wrote a cookbook! Privilege, it seems, was one of his signatures dishes. Privilege is simplicity at its best. It is a one-pot dish of rice, cooked with okras, salted meat (pigtails and salt beef), and seasoned with thyme, onions, garlic, scallions and hot pepper. According to the late Austin Clarke, it was Mr. Barrow that introduced him to Privilege.