 Hello again, St. Lucia, and welcome to the program, Agriculture on the Move. I am Philip Sidney, your host. I'm pretty excited why our Banana Expo is very close, just a few days away, Friday to be exact, the 6th of May, on the Constitution Park in Castries, next to the Town Hall, and we, of course, under the theme, FIGLA SISANU TUT. But with me today are two gentlemen who will be involved in the Expo, and next to me is Robbie Skeet, who is a restaurant owner, and Mr. Patrick Villano, who is the owner of Vells Multiservices Limited. Welcome to the program, gentlemen. Welcome. Great, great, great. Robbie, I know you're a busy man, but I don't know how I got you out of your restaurant today, but today we really want to speak to the use of our local produce for your cuisine in your kitchen, Robbie, especially, and of course, Mr. Villano, for using your agro-processing value-added products. But in our ministry, we have a tagline called Eat Fresh, St. Lucia's Best. The objective of this is to really to have St. Lucia consume more of what is grown locally. One, health for health reasons, and two, to at least lower our food import bill. We did it a few years ago by introducing our seven crop project, and five of those crops we were able to reduce our food import bill by 30%. So we can do it. But Robbie, tell me something about you and your restaurant, your menu. What percentage of local produce do you use? 100%. 100%. Are you getting what you want? Are you getting the quality? What's made doesn't matter, because I use every single thing I get was in season, was plentiful, was readily available, and I don't think any local produce could be tagged as being expensive in the realm of things, considering the things that people pick up at the supermarkets. So it doesn't bother me, because I use local produce to do something different every single day on my plate. So I'm always using some, whether it be eggplant, whether it be crystalline, whether it be dashing, breadfruit, carrots, baby carrots, okros, whatever. Every single thing that you see in the market or on the shelf, I use on a daily basis in variations of all of them. So my food does not become monotonous and people get something different and interesting on their plates every day. So you go to the local market to purchase your produce? Yeah, in tandem with having a small farm and growing stuff all around my restaurant, sort of like a home garden. So there's tomatoes there, there's eggplant, there's cherry tomatoes, there's all the herbs you could think of, from chateau benny to tea lion, it's right there, but I still go to the market to supplement that, so whenever I need, especially at nights, I always have fresh stuff there to use for my fine dining menu. But yes, I do go to the market twice, three times a week, and if I don't go, I send my driver to pick up stuff for me, but my days of actually going to the market is a Friday and a Saturday, every day over the last 35 years. Wow, wow. And whenever I'm in town, and anywhere I'm driving by, the whole island is a market to me. People are flagging me down or some guy walking with some stuff on his head. I buy stuff in bulk and I find ways to use it. When I go to the market, more times than not, I don't even need most of the stuff I'm buying. I just give all people a sale. But I find a way of utilizing whatever it is that I've bought. Wow, wow. Well, you on the other hand, I mean, you into agro-processing. How much of the local produce do you use? Give us an example of an array of value added. Okay, first of all, the whole process was, the Ministry of Agriculture were issuing plants. They were issuing Latani and Mobi plants. And I capitalized on that, planted it. It took five years to get to mature stage. And the whole idea with the Latani was to make brooms. So I started making the brooms and after about seven years, I realized it started by seeds. So then I went through a whole process with it, do nutrition analysis. It's like sending it to Canada for testing, test it in Trinidad, get approval by the Bureau of Standard, all that. But it just says that Latani, which was given to me for making brooms, I was able to make brooms and make wine, which is one of my most popular wine right now. Even in doing the nutrition analysis, there are so many benefits from it presently. Even people has testified that it's working for even the prostate problems. You know, now, I mean, even the other Mobi, I use the Mobi, process the Mobi, dry it up, sell it to the supermarket, you know, so many good things about Mobi. The benefits of Mobi, it helps to build your cholesterol, it cleanser you into track. It's like it is said that even on a hot day, a glass of Mobi would cool you down. If you have diabetes, so many things about the Mobi. And then I still use the Mobi itself and making the Mobi wine out of it. Now, Latani Moringa, so much is being said even about the Moringa. I mean, you hate on the TV and radio all the benefits of Moringa. So I then said, OK, let me go into the Moringa. It's another popular drink again. And it's like, just name the drink and I have tried it or I'm selling it. Wow. Just name the drink. OK, so let's just go into the bananas. The banana industry over the years, you know, have brought, you know, lots of finance to this country, especially to the rural areas. We know when I grew up, of course, was to eat ripe bananas and, of course, green bananas in many ways, in broil and the whole works. So much so, I was trying to get some of the young people to understand. We, I know growing up, we actually roast ripe banana as a foodie-fake, you know. But let's look at banana because we're going into this banana expo. Robbie, tell me, in your restaurant, do you tell us the multi-usages of bananas? Mm, you have enough time on the show? Yeah, yeah. I like that one. I mean, everything that you can do with, with everything, you know, all the great chefs and frauds, you know, culinary, you know, history, anything you can do with a potato, you can do with any of our roots, vegetables or banana, green banana, ripe banana. However you want to use it. So there's a multitude of things you can do with, you know, with green figs. And I've tried so many of them. And yesterday I tried the easiest one and people loved it. Wow. I boil green figs and I rough mash it and I throw a fish broth water over it as one of my sides. Basic, basic way. And everything that went out alongside it, whether it be the steamed pumpkin, the dumplings, the black beans, whatever else we had, mac and cheese, a little Christopher Inguata. Everybody enjoyed everything, but they commented on... On the... Looking at the green figs, they were like, what's that? I don't know, NASA says that. All of them couldn't stop eating it before they went on to the other items on the plate. Wow, wow. So just our basic way of we grew up eating it, you know, when it's in a broth and you just mash it a little bit or whatever, it's fantastic. You know, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can make, you know, so many things of it, you can make chips of it, you can make a pie with it, you can make a souffle, you can make salad with it, use it as a mix of salads, because now instead of just doing green fig salad, I do green fig sweet potato, and green fig and breadfruit, breadfruit and sweet potato. I mix the, you know, the provisions in the same way you do Irish potato salad. Sometimes I use Irish potatoes and green figs, you know, and the variations of it. We've done the nice green fig and salfish soup, we've done the green fig and salfish, you know, guatain, we've done, you know, so many, I mean, I could go on and on and on, you know. My, the young man who's gonna be doing the demo tomorrow, if I could let the cat out of the bag, he's gonna do some green fig gnocchis, and I mean gnocchis are international, you know, dumpling, you know, for Italian background, whatever. He's kind of a nice classy dumpling, they normally do it with Irish potatoes, but he's gonna do it with green figs. And it's really nice. I mean, it's, we had a Jamaican guy who used to come to our restaurant, he had it a couple of times, and you know, he requested it to be on his plate every day, because of him, you know, it became popular in everybody. So now I do dumplings on my plates, and people love it. We do all different types of dumplings, you know, black pepper dumplings, I hope dumplings, we do green fig dumplings. So I mean, it just goes on and on and on. I mean, and people watching the program could probably say, oh, what about this, and what about that, and what about that, and probably give you another fancy again. That just hasn't come to mind yet, but you know. I mean, it's really a versatile, you know, vegetable, if you want to call it, and fruits. Excuse me. You see, that takes me back to maybe what propelled myself, of course, via the ministry to go into this banana expo. It's just because of a statement made by the prime minister, and everybody took it out of context, and they bashed him for it, you know. And I think it was, to me, when it happened, it happened at the right time, because it opened up, you know, the minds of people to say, okay, hey, there are many uses of bananas, like other crops. What you are saying, in essence, you know, let's not consume more of what we grow. That's basically it, you know. So I, the conversation began, and people were, their social media took, went frenzy with it, you know. But on Friday, I know for independence, the Anangan Church had to go at it, which was pretty, pretty good. But then this, the ministry, we're taking it to the next level, which is the culinary aspect of it, and of course, adding a little more of the agro-processing to it. So you'll see a versatility of the use of green bananas, and red, all right. Well, that's been my, you know, what I've been professing throughout my whole career, when I coached the national culinary team in my restaurant. I, you know, as you know, I also use my restaurant as a school. Yes. For the apprenticeship kids, I have one there, two there right now, one upstairs, one downstairs. And I preach to them, you know, let's help take down the import bill, let's use local produce alone, let's let everything that's going out in our plate be variations of local things. If you all have any little ideas you want, you know, I'm happy for you to try it and put it on the plates. And that's basically, you know, what I've been, what you're doing now, I guess it's probably like a broken record listening to me because I've spoken to you about that new work times, and you know that that's what I'm all about. So keeping the import bill down, keeping the money in the hands of the farmers and then a gentleman like him and, you know, the meat farmers and the poultry farmers and all that, to keep the money in San Lucia. Help take down the import bill, you know, it's fantastic that we, whatever we import should just be the basics. Definitely. Along the lines of food, I think we can be so creative with every single local produce that we have. The root vegetables, the breadfruit, the fruits that we have. You know, why aren't we, you know, producing sour, sub-juice canned and tamarind juice canned, like, you know, like Puerto Rico and the big islands. So about time I think we have enough product, you know, during, when they're in season, just being wasted and going into just the minimum local use. Man goes falling down by the roadside, making vinegar on the road, you know. True, true. And I suppose that's where the well comes in before he's fruits. That's why I went to the fruits aspect because I know he's doing a fantastic job of that. As a matter of fact, you know, getting to bring some of his wines, then you see if I could start pushing them because, you know, there's a gentleman named Aika who's produced a wide variety of rums and vodkas and liquors, you know, Aika. Yes, yes, yes. And it's fantastic. It had to take, you know, someone from the outside. Outside to come in, yeah. To come in and realize what they're doing. The dashing vodka. The dashing, yeah. I have it in my restaurant and then I push it. Exactly. And people like it. As a matter of fact, you know, I must remember to push it even more because I think it's what people come down to visit to experience. Definitely. You know, they've had absolute vodka. They've had great goose. They've had this. And now they have dashing. They want to try some dashing. I tell them that's what gave Hussain Bolt his steroids. True, that's true, that's true. Very good. You know, I just think we could, San Lucia in general should be doing a lot more to take down. Even when you walk into the supermarket, you should try to spend your money on, you know, what's local. Buy plantain chips instead of pringles. I'll come to that, you know. We go into a break because I want to come back to that because I think, you know, parents are allowing the kids to manipulate the other store market, going and buying the foreign, you know, fruits. They themselves like it. Yeah, like it too. Anyway, you're watching Agricultural and the Move, stay tuned, we'll be back soon. One fruit to so many dishes. Demonstrations by chefs Robbie and Orlando. One fruit to so many uses. From paper to baskets to facial products and more. Banana Expo 2022. May 6th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Constitution Park. And the launching of the banana recipe book featuring all things made from bananas. Welcome back. You're watching Agricultural and the Move with me, of course, Mr. Patrick Villano, of Veil's Multiservices Limited and also Robbie Skeet's Restaurante. And we are talking about the use of our local produce in St. Lucia. And of course, that is really taking us, putting us in gear for our Banana Expo 2022. Robbie, brought up an interesting point a while ago and I'll come to Mr. Veil because I want him to tell us a little more about the use of bananas. But one thing that concerns me a lot is parents go to the supermarkets and they push naturally and the kids, you know, again, maybe it's we're not doing enough ads on our local television to push our local fruits. So they see a lot of ads being produced of the foreign fruits and they are based on mommy buy this, buy an apple for me, buy cherries for me and stuff like this. But then I believe parents should be the one to take the lead in that regard. Why not a banana? What are your thoughts? No, that's a hard one to try to sell. You know, people gravitate to red. Yes. Kids like apples. You know, they want an apple. But your mangoes, that's a red mango. That's something that has to be, you know, start from the school age where you inculcate anything into their minds that, you know, not just support local but local happens to also be the healthier choice. Exactly. And having a banana a day as opposed to an apple a day is probably a lot healthier with all the different minerals and all the different benefits of a red banana compared to an apple. Right. And you can have an apple also, but you should always have the banana. You know, so I think it's something that needs to be inculcated into the kids minds from school. You have to start those programs and push it and push it and push it to continue the ads you're all doing on television. Right. You know, get the Audi to do some ads. Get the guys that's singing, what's the guys, the Denver Connection. Instead of singing, instead of singing around, she songs along. Do something, you know. Yeah, I agree. Do something along the lines of, you know. Do something with valves, of course. But they're from the valley anyway. Something that the kids can relate to and say easy because they pick it up so easy. Very, very easy. So they can pick up a nice tagline by Denver Connection with, you know, about eating bananas, eating healthy, being strong, getting like Darren, Sammy. Yes. You know, being the next, you know, this high, you know, our high jumper. Right, right. You know, LeVon. I agree. I know it's just, it's education I think is the key. Trying to just, you know, suggest it to parents is not going to fly with them. The kids, the kids are demanding. Yeah, demanding. Parents want to please the kids. You know, you're not taking enough of them to, you know, buy the apple. It's still a fruit. Very true. So, you know, you have to start from the foundation. I would say. I think so too. Same thing if I'm taking down the import bill and getting the hotels and them to use more local products. It starts from us educating our young chefs to go out there and come and become executive chefs. I agree. Because they're the ones that'll be able to relate to somebody like me trying to tell them, look, stop using all the produce in the staff canteen unless they're putting it out on the plates in a nice gourmet fashion and bigging up our local products. Mixing it with, you know, gentlemen, you know, like in his wines and doing interesting things as opposed to just, you know, letting experts make the decisions on our, on what happens on our culinary plates. Exactly. You know. And we have enough. No, I mean, no, not knocking them or anything. You know, they do a fantastic job in running kitchens and whatnot, but I don't see why, you know, our young men and women can't grow up to be the ones being the executive chefs in the next generations to come. I totally agree. It should be the one that understands the local produce, the one that's have the, you know, the cultural background of what Saint Lucia is all about that can bring it forward on those plates for those guests to enjoy and experience and say, wow, we had a true experience in Saint Lucia right at the hotel. Correct. There was this, there was that, there was, you know, they could tell you about dashings with potatoes, Christophine, this, fufu, you know, cassava or whatever and do variations of it with all the international, with all the international ways. Sure. The souffles, the, you know, the polandas, the this, you know, I agree. Well, tell us about your, the expo. What did you bring into the floor? I'm not asking you to tell us, give us a secret at this juncture, but you said the banana. Okay. But this is what you're pushing. Even before the banana, our fruits in Saint Lucia, our people tend not to love the banana, like ripe banana, ripe mango. I believe we should change the pattern or the style of using our product. For instance, if you give a child an entire banana, the time it would take them to peel the banana, maybe we can cut the, you know, cut the banana a certain length. Say you cut the ends of it, all you have to do is just peel the center part. It will make them enjoy a banana, because just a piece, not an entire banana, like a mango. You don't give them a whole ripe mango that when they eat dirty the entire self, maybe we could look at a half ripe mango. You know, if it's half ripe, when you're eating it, it will not dirty you up. So maybe we should change the style, look at sour soap, I mean, who would not enjoy a piece of sour soap? Maybe we should mix a little slice of sour soap, a little slice of banana, a little slice of mango, you know, all our different food. Exactly. As you mentioned, I've always queried. I go to, you know, workshops and then for the brick, all of this thing is the foreign fruit. Not one local fruit in the plate. A bowl of grapes and apples. Apples. What I'm talking about mango, what I'm talking about banana. Could imagine I went through. They're probably thinking you don't want to dirty yourself, you know, slobbering it from mango now. But if you put it in mango paluri like an apple. Exactly. Yeah, I went to Cuba and guava. You would get guava so often you would get the juice. You know, even for dessert they'll give you a slice of guava, you know. And what is so bad about eating a slice of guava? Exactly. You know. I got so used to the mango, ripe mango juice. Not the green one. And it tastes good. I mean, you just have to add your different ingredients and make sure it comes out good. But we can use the mango to make our juice. Exactly. Exactly. So what do you bring in to the expo? Well for the expo I'm bringing like it is well known that I'm a wine guy. So I must thank even Mr. David John. You didn't bring the wine first. Don't worry. He invited me to the expo they had at the Anglican school. Right. And it's like all along I have been doing macaboo, planting wine. And I have never really got into banana. Don't ask me why because it's like we don't talk about banana so much that not even the wine I was manufacturing. Okay. And from the time we talked about that expo over there it's like I participated and now I'm seeing and even what the Prime Minister came up with. Right. Let's do something with the banana. I'm seeing but of course we tried the banana already some plate even last Saturday we had an activity. I brought the banana wine for sampling and the feedback I got is like where were you all the time you wasn't preparing banana wine. I'm saying figure our tourists coming down here knowing banana was one of our main products and what were we doing with the banana. Just cut the banana cook the banana and eat it green that's all. And here's the chef telling you I guess Friday people will be surprised that can be made out of our banana. Definitely. And this is what I really wanted and we are bringing the schools the primary and secondary schools and let me tell you this is not easy and I will always see it again. Let me tell you we had I have said before and I'll say it again because I was so pleased with that child from the hair school we had a whole food activity on 2019 on the Sabbath VG and the child did his sweet potato ice cream and Robbie I mean I tasted the thing and asked people everybody watched one another it's like what is this you know but the thing about it Robbie where would she go is that a dead end for her what is is there any avenue that she can actually take it to the next level. She should be produce it and introduce it to all the hotels that's the point and get you know well the only thing I'm thinking now because I think the government have this the youth economy alright I'm thinking here's an opportunity you understand that child probably can bring this thing patent it and then start to produce it I believe the kids are creative we had we had a cassava competition among the schools and the only thing I sadly we did not do was to have it recorded properly and document it into a a recipe book that's why when I when I should do my television show I always every every two episodes I always go get school kids to come and try something that they you know whoever won the competitions to come and do something on the show because there are some you know there are some really really out of the box thinking they have just amazing you know and I go there and I see I'll teach that I'll teach that you know so many interesting things I mean like they say it takes two hands to clap and you see the thought pattern that goes into some of the creativity that they bring out you know it's interesting I mean for example we'll be launching this recipe a banana book alright there are 60 recipes in it and your chefs are featured in that I mean if you see this thing man I mean hello 60 recipes from bananas and I'm sure we can do more and you can do another 60 easy to another book you know so we definitely need to get our together so then we will see not only banana but a little a little macabre wine a little plantain wine too yes because at one time banana was known as green gold yes and after thinking about the whole green gold business I decide ok I'm going to call the banana the banana wine well the family in fact because we have the macabre we have the plantain we have the the guindy yes and we have the so I'll call it the green gold and then it will branch out with the different ingredients you'll have the macabre flavor you'll get the banana flavor this is where I figure I can expand right right right but I will keep up I'll stick up to the green gold apart from the hotels I'm not really but after you wonder are you pushing with them I'm here the whole covid business you could only not sell it as a drink you could also sell it as a cooking wine right right right so that you could use it in different dishes in different sauces and what not but I think I think now the hotels start coming in but I think we don't let them come in go on them ok I think we should introduce our local products I think we should be more aggressive yes introducing yes yes because I can recall one of the hotels I saw they had the latinier palm in the hotel as a palm and I was introducing the wine to them and they were not even too interested to say ok let me see what it tastes like yeah so maybe you need to have a taste thing go go bring it to them the other thing you find the other time with some of the hotels it's like it's like they would invite you you get the guests to sample and you get in good feedback from the guests but some of the chefs now who has to give the final wood wood hold back it's like when I'm ready I'll call you and it's like wow hold it back the entire thing I think in a little event sometime soon I'll probably engage you to come and do something there because you know the type of people that are probably produce your wines too right but Jeremy I think we have come to the end of the program because it's half an hour it's short but I'm sure there'll be more coming from you at the expo Mr. Vellano and of course Robbie will be there to do his his live cooking demonstration he will be there with his chef because Robbie has taught a lot of people you know the chefs and they contribute to the the recipe book so I want to thank you for being a gentleman and hope to see you on Friday at the Belanda expo thank you for viewing the program and remember the expo is on the 6th Friday it starts at 10 o'clock and it ends at 6 o'clock so please try and be there you can purchase a recipe book you can come in and view and purchase whatever is being produced and sample at the same time we will have a good time together on Friday the 6th at the constitution prep starting from 10 to 6 so see you there I'm Philip Sidney saying goodbye alright