Breadfruit was originally brought from Polynesia as cheap slave food

Breadfruit was originally brought from Polynesia as cheap slave food. I detect no “flavour to the bone” so I give the rest of it to a small, smiling boy He wolfs it down in one. “You got to bite right through it, there’s flavour to the bones,” snorts Jane with amusement. The chicken foot is cold and clammy, with a slightly scaly feel There’s about a millimetre of skin before my teeth hit bone One of the claws fragments in my mouth I chew it and find my tongue covered in little splinters. “I’ve got chicken foot, pig foot and cow skin souse,” she coaxes and I stare at a woman walking away with a polystyrene cup, full to the brim with tiny claws.I buy six dollars worth, and a small crowd gathers, sensing my bravado is a sham. Jane Winchester’s stand in the south-east of the island is one that attracts a following.

This is the Caribbean of my imagination; an island you can walk around yet large enough to have a feeling of being unexplored. With tropical forest and idyllic beaches, it is also now a package holiday Mecca, especially popular with the British – though, aside from contact with diving instructors and taxi drivers, the holidaymakers tend to leave the locals alone. On a cultural level, therefore, the island has remained relatively “untouched”.For the curious, one of the best times to sample the local culture is on a Friday night. The weekend only kicks off after a cup of souse – sold by women all over the island who set up outdoor shop, with plastic buckets holding various parts of animals boiled to a jelly, soaked in lime juice and flavoured with chilli, chives and “shadow benny” (similar to coriander). The inscription is not a language I know but I was told it says `She becomes more beautiful’ It’s the only one on the island. The House of Assembly wanted to borrow it but I wouldn’t take that chance!” He chuckles and nods his head knowingly.The coin may be more than 150 years old, but Tobago hasn’t changed much in the beauty stakes.

Last month, George opened “Cosy Comfort” to the public.”Look you here,” says George, “This coin bears the original Tobagonean coat of arms, before she became annexed to Trinidad. After the abolition of slavery, this great-grandmother earned enough gold to buy Franklin’s estate, the plantation her forebears had slaved on.Her grandson, George’s father, became the highest ranking police officer on the island. George Jr owns and runs the island’s radio station, Tambrin Radio – named after the only musical instrument the slaves were allowed to play.George himself has spent more than 60 years collecting items of his family’s past at his home, a collection that has now been recognised with funding from the United Nations. His great-grandmother was the daughter of a Scottish “massah” who had exercised his droit de seigneur with a slave. Instead, past and present intertwine subtly with every helping of “oil down”, “corn coco”, and “buljol”. Variations of these heritage foods can be tasted throughout the Caribbean.The Leacocks are one of Tobago’s oldest and most respected families and George, who is 83, traces his ancestors back to slaves who arrived on the island almost 300 years ago.