Derek Stavarski's List: Garifuna - Ethnology Paper -Diet, Nutrition

• Much of the food consumed in the village is produced or harvested by local  residents. All of the seafood and pork and some of the chicken, eggs, and beef  are obtained in Santa Fe.
• Cassava, jicama, plantains, corn, oranges,   grapefruits, coconuts,  avocados, and limes are grown locally and are either consumed in Santa Fe or  sold, most often in Trujillo.
• Small coconut breads and sweet breads made with banana or other fruit are baked  by local women and sold in the village, usually by young children under   their care.  Cassava bread is an important staple of the Garifuna diet and has ritual importance during ancestor veneration  ceremonies.
• The residents of Santa Fe also have access to a limited variety of foods  produced elsewhere in Honduras and sometimes abroad. Usually these are purchased  in Trujillo at general stores or in the municipal market. Foods most frequently  obtained in Trujillo include whole frozen chickens, beef, soft yellow and hard  white cheese made from cow's milk, red beans, rice, corn, tortillas, tomatoes,  onions, garlic, bouillon cubes, tomato paste, spaghetti noodles, palm oil  margarine, sugar, and salt.

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• The Garífuna rely on a diverse group of plants for sustenance and well being:  254 species (Appendix 1) (see also Coe 1994) distributed among 193 genera and 75  families (Table 4). We group these species into seven use categories: food,  beverage, fuel, construction and crafts, dyes and tannins, poison, and  medicinals.
• The most important staple foods are seven introduced domesticates distributed  among five families. In order of importance, they are: cassava (80-NW), beans  (112-NW), rice (248 Oryza sativa  -OW), dasheen (217-OW), coconut  (226-OW)], coco yam (221-NW), and maize
• The main staples of their diet (with the exception of  cassava) are food plants of the OW tropics (e.g., banana (241), breadfruit (145  Artocarpus altilis   ), dasheen
• The most important species of this family is the common bean (112), which,  together with root crops, provide the mainstay of the Garífuna   diet.
• In terms of per capita consumption, availability, cultural importance (used as  festival and ritual food), and as a cash source, the Euphorbiaceae is by far the  most important plant family to the Garífuna. In this family as well, the high  ranking derives from a single species, cassava

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• Species of the Solanaceae, though second in number utilized for food and fourth  in overall species use (Table 6), are most important as flavorings.
• Among food plants, the citruses are also one of  the more important cash crops.  Many people have small groves of grapefruit, lime, orange, and tangerine; the  surpluses of these crops are sold in regional markets.
• Seasonal foods provide needed food during the time between harvest of field  crops and other staple foods. In addition, they are often good sources of  vitamins and minerals. The majority of seasonal foods are fruits obtained from  dooryard gardens and, to a lesser extent, from the wild.
•  In addition  to the use of food plants in a purely dietary sense for daily sustenance, many  of the same species play an important role in Garífuna festivals and rituals.
• Such foods are served at festivals and during rituals. Among the most frequently  used are cassava (80) (the most important), rice (248), beans (112), dasheen  (217), and coco yam
•  In years when  crop yields are low because of pests, diseases, and/or adverse climatic  conditions, the Garífuna utilize other food sources.  The majority of famine  foods are from wild species native to eastern Nicaragua and include leaves,  seeds, roots, and fruits.

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• In the principal ports, such as La Ceiba and Tela, cattle are butchered daily;  in smaller settlements, like Trujillo, only twice a week. Most of the meat is  sold to Ladinos; the poorer sections of the population, Carib and non-Carib, can  afford only the inferior cuts and viscera.
• The dish known as       “mondongo,   ” made of tripe and bone-marrow cooked together, is often served at  wakes and embarradas.   Even men of means among the Carib,  however, prefer fish to meat.
• Beef, and more so, pork are items of “conspicuous consumption,” and mark festive  occasions. Fowl are the greatest luxury, rarely to be encountered outside of the  feasts offered to ancestral spirits.
• Dairy products and eggs, however, which are difficult to procure in the larger  towns of the Caribbean coast, are common articles of consumption in Carib  villages.

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• Although Carib meals are not varied, Carib diet  includes a great number of different items. More than twenty plants supplying  carbohydrates are used.
• The sources of fats and proteins are more limited, in the first case being  largely coconut oil, and in the latter, primarily fish with some pork and beef.  Vitamins are provided by the great variety of wild and cultivated fruits  mentioned above.
• Cassava bread, called areba   by Caribs and casabe   by others, is the  main component of the Carib diet. Its practical  importance is enhanced by the mystical significance attached to it, which  parallels the role of wheat bread in Christian rites
• Store bought wheat-flour bread (f˜ei,   from the French pain  ) is generally eaten  with sliced avocados, green bananas, or cheese, as an accompaniment to drinks.

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•  Now that we have a general view of Black Carib culture,  it is possible to discuss the derivations of its components, and how these were  affected by change, starting with material culture.
• As already indicated, the Black Carib have adopted the staple food of the Carib  Indians, cassava bread, with the methods of planting cassava or manioc roots,  preparing the flour for making bread, and baking the areba   on a round grid.
• The   fact  that the Black Carib cultivate so many different plants and raise crops for the  market is mainly due, perhaps, to the African part of their heritage, since  their “Red” hosts practised a subsistence economy
• Other African influences are clearly  in the diet and in  cooking. Though cassava flour substitutes for cornmeal in the porridges and  gruels that the Carib favor, these are akin to the mungunzá   of Bahia, the  mingau    of Southern Brazil, and other similar dishes found among South  American Negroes.
• The barbecue of the “Red” Carib has been retained only as a means of preserving  food; cooking with vegetable oil, in the African fashion, obtains today,  although instead of palm oil, coconut  oil came to be utilized. Chili peppers, which the Island  Carib apparently used only for their pepperpot, are the universal condiments of  Black Carib cuisine.

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• The Garifuna diet today is more varied and no doubt  less nutritious than that of their Island Carib ancestors, yet, it bears an  unmistakable resemblance to the former while also reflecting the various exotic  cultural influences experienced over the past 400 years.
• Garifuna food habits have received some attention from scholars in relation to  sickness (Gonzalez 1963) and to patterns of protein-energy malnutrition among  children (Jenkins 1980)
• For this purpose, it is important to consider the use of foods in three  contexts: secular celebrations, everyday nourishment, and religious ritual. It  is almost impossible to discuss these as discrete categories, for all three are  closely related, both practically   and conceptually.

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• Fish (including shellfish) and cassava were the basic staples of the early  Island Carib/Arawak peoples and of their Island Carib descendants. Both items  figure prominently in Carib creation myths (M. Gullick 1980) and are described  by all the early observers. According to Sturtevant (1961:70–71),  early Caribbean  peoples grew maize, but it was less important than manioc or cassava and sweet  potatoes.

• Should these precautions be ignored, the child is likely to take sick, and  Page: 78   may even die. For the mother, the primary concern is to keep the  child indoors prior to its baptism. The Carib believe that the child is  particularly susceptible to evil spirits during this time.
• The mother herself must avoid certain foods, such as plantain and cassava. The  eating of these “heavy” foods would curdle the mother's milk, and the nursing  child would be harmed.

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  Although some few husbands reported food taboos,  most of the restrictions on the father's activities are centered around heavy  exertion, either in work or in  sex
• As a general rule the father must be careful not to work too hard, nor to engage  in certain sexual activities. There is great individual variation as to the  length of time the restrictions are observed.  If the father breaks a taboo, he  risks injuring the child

• These restrictions, and many of the new mother's observances, are said to  protect the infant's health. The parent-child bond is so close that the  activities and diet of the parents directly affect  their offspring, both before and after birth.