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🌍 Country of the Week · A Spin the Globe Teacher's Guide
Saint Lucia
Saint LuciaNorth America · This week's dish comes from Castries
About Saint Lucia
Saint Lucian food is Creole and green-fig-loving, with the national dish of saltfish and green banana. French and African roots meet in bouyon stew, callaloo, and fiery local seasoning.
Green fig means green banana, not the fruit. The national dish pairs it with salt cod, which is a colonial make-do: European salt fish arriving on the same ships that carried the plantation economy, meeting the bananas that grew everywhere, and the two boiled and dressed with onion, sweet pepper and local seasoning.
Bouyon is the one-pot: provisions, meaning yam, dasheen and green banana, cooked down with dumplings, beans and whatever meat there is until the broth thickens by itself. Cocoa tea is what starts the morning, cocoa grated from a stick with cinnamon and bay leaf, and it is a drink rather than a dessert.
The wider picture: A collision of Indigenous, colonial, and immigrant tables.
This week's dish: Green Fig and Saltfish
Saint Lucia's national breakfast: boiled green bananas tossed with sautéed salted cod, peppers, and herbs.
Serves 4 · Prep 20 min · Cook 30 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 Saint Lucia 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. Green Fig and Saltfish comes from Castries, in Saint Lucia. 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 Green Fig and Saltfish. How have the people, trade routes, and history of Saint Lucia shaped what ends up on the plate there?
4. Compare Green Fig and Saltfish to a dish your own family cooks. What is similar, what is different, and what one question would you ask a family in Saint Lucia about how they make and share it?
5. After you cook Green Fig and Saltfish, add Saint Lucia 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