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🌍 Country of the Week · A Spin the Globe Teacher's Guide
Grenada
GrenadaNorth America · This week's dish comes from St. George's
About Grenada
Grenada is the 'Spice Isle,' and nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove perfume its cooking, from the national oil down (a one-pot of breadfruit, meat, and coconut) to cocoa tea. Fresh spice and Caribbean warmth define the plate.
Oil down is named for what happens in the pot: the coconut milk cooks away until only the oil is left in the bottom, and everything above it, breadfruit, callaloo, salted meat, dumplings and turmeric, has absorbed the rest. It is cooked outdoors in quantity for a crowd rather than portioned as a meal.
The spice trade is real but it is also a recovering one. Hurricane Ivan destroyed most of Grenada's nutmeg trees in 2004 and the industry has only partly come back, so present-tense claims about its ranking need checking. Cocoa tea, made by grating a stick of local cocoa into water with spice and sweetening it, is the breakfast drink.
The wider picture: A collision of Indigenous, colonial, and immigrant tables.
This week's dish: Grenadian Nutmeg Ice Cream
A cool, creamy ice cream fragrant with fresh-grated nutmeg, showcasing the spice that defines the Isle of Spice.
Serves 6 · Prep 15 min · Cook 10 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 Grenada 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. Grenadian Nutmeg Ice Cream comes from St. George's, in Grenada. 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 Grenadian Nutmeg Ice Cream. How have the people, trade routes, and history of Grenada shaped what ends up on the plate there?
4. Compare Grenadian Nutmeg Ice Cream to a dish your own family cooks. What is similar, what is different, and what one question would you ask a family in Grenada about how they make and share it?
5. After you cook Grenadian Nutmeg Ice Cream, add Grenada 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