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🌍 Country of the Week · A Spin the Globe Teacher's Guide
Barbados
BarbadosNorth America · This week's dish comes from Bridgetown
About Barbados
Barbados calls cou-cou (cornmeal and okra) and flying fish its national dish, alongside crisp fish cakes and fiery Bajan pepper sauce. Rum, seafood, and a warm street-food culture define the island table.
Cou-cou is cornmeal cooked with finely sliced okra until it is smooth and glossy, and it can be made from breadfruit or green banana instead. The flying fish beside it is more often boned, rolled and steamed in a herb-and-tomato gravy than fried, and the pairing is traditionally Friday food rather than an everyday plate.
Saturday belongs to pudding and souse: pork pickled in lime, cucumber and pepper, served with a savoury sweet-potato pudding steamed in a casing, bought from a particular vendor whom families stay loyal to for years. Macaroni pie, which is what Barbadians call macaroni cheese, turns up beside almost everything else.
The wider picture: A collision of Indigenous, colonial, and immigrant tables.
This week's dish: Bajan Saltfish Cakes
Crisp, fluffy fritters of salt cod, flour, and herbs fried golden and eaten hot with pepper sauce, a Bajan breakfast and street favorite.
Serves 4 · Prep 15 min · Cook 15 min · Difficulty: easy
See the full recipe: ingredients, steps and dietary swaps →
Grown-up jobs: any step that uses a hot stove, oven, boiling water, or a sharp knife is for a teacher or parent. Children can measure, mix, and assemble.
Discussion prompts
1. Find Barbados on a world map or globe. It sits in North America. Which oceans or neighboring countries does it touch, and roughly how far is it from where you live?
2. Bajan Saltfish Cakes comes from Bridgetown, in Barbados. Read its ingredient list together. Which of those foods do you think are grown or raised nearby, and how might the country's climate and landscape explain that?
3. Read the short story behind Bajan Saltfish Cakes. How have the people, trade routes, and history of Barbados shaped what ends up on the plate there?
4. Compare Bajan Saltfish Cakes to a dish your own family cooks. What is similar, what is different, and what one question would you ask a family in Barbados about how they make and share it?
5. After you cook Bajan Saltfish Cakes, add Barbados to a classroom map and give it a stamp. Write down one fact about its food or geography that you did not know this morning.
🌍 Spin the Globe · Geography through food · spintheglobeofficial.com/for-teachers