Virgin Islands

Rainbow Caribbean Soup

Ahlissa P. (original recipe)

I knew nothing about the Virgin Islands so I skimmed the Wikipedia entry. It was originally named "Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins" (by Christopher Columbus, in 1493), which is a pretty wild name for a place.

First, where is it? It's a group of Caribbean islands, just east of Puerto Rico (which is just east of Hispaniola - Haiti and the Dominican Republic -, which is just east of Cuba, which is 90 miles south of Florida).

It consists of three main islands and many smaller ones. Tourism is their biggest industry and almost 1/3 of the population lives in poverty. It has six species of endemic bats. A 2023 poll showed close to 2/3 of residents supported statehood. That's mostly it from Wikipedia.

At 87,000 people, I think statehood is pretty unlikely. However, if there really were a strong interest, then I propose joint statehood with Puerto Rico (assuming they were to decide the same). One congressional delegation, but with separate governance. I know, it's unprecedented, but that's fine, remember, there were only 48 states when my dad was a kid! Big changes happen, if we choose it. One state, two distinct jurisdictions... Massachusetts is a Commonwealth, wtf is that? PR alone has more than 5 times the population of Wyoming and is more than twice the size of Rhode Island, so it's there for the taking if they want it. It wouldn't even mess up the flag that much, because you can have alternating lines of 6 and 7 stars.

Almost 99% of the Virgin Islands' energy is fossil-fuel derived, all imported, more than 20,000 barrels of oil each day ($600 million each year). Clearly there is a lot of potential for solar (I favor roof-top, which is more expensive than utility-scale but doesn't eat up land). It is also one of the areas in the Caribbean with the most potential for wave energy, which is not yet commercially viable but someday could be an exciting non-intermittent energy source for small island nations that struggle with energy independence.

Today's recipe has me thinking about agriculture. I've nicknamed it Million Veggie Soup because the contributor, Ahlissa, inspired by witnessing a rainbow, basically jammed as many vegetables into chicken soup as feasible. She counts 13 different vegetables. Unfortunately, the middle of winter is an awkward time to acquire fresh vegetables in abundance but never fear! I have a plan.

First of all, we observe: most of the Virgin Islands' food is imported anyway, which I guess is good news for its six endemic bats. Apparently this is a weird beach-to-interior-area-ratio issue unique to islands in the age of global capitalism. You can sustain high levels of tourism relative to your land area (because of all those beaches), and you have a relatively small interior habitat to support your endemic species, once again relative to land area. So there is a conservation imperative, not to convert land to agriculture, balanced by a tourism sector that can bring in foreign money to pay for food imports, just like rich people on the mainland do all winter long.

So for now, I will peruse the produce aisle of the grocery store and throw 'local' and 'seasonal' to the wind. I've managed to maintain the impressive vegetable count although I substituted celery (what's a soup without celery?) for sweet potato (not really a fan). Then I told my mom and she scolded me for omitting sweet potato on both cultural and nutritional grounds. Spoiler: the soup was pretty great, I will make it again and this time brave the sweet potato. I've forced myself to tolerate and eventually appreciate vegetables before.

The star of the soup, however, is from the frozen aisle: okra! They actually grow okra in the Virgin Islands, which is cool, and apparently it freezes very well so it's a perfect choice for a winter soup. I've cooked with okra a few times and never had any problems with the slime. We'll see if this time is any different.

Ingredients

• Oil

• 1 small Shallot, chopped

• 1/2 cu. cubed Chicken substitute

• 4 cloves Garlic, chopped

• 1 rib Celery, chopped

• 2 tsp. Parsley, chopped

• 4 Mini bell peppers--2 each red and yellow--seeded and chopped

• 1 medium Carrot, chopped

• 1 medium Red potato, chopped

• 1/2 cu. Purple cabbage, chopped

• 1/2 Zucchini, chopped

• 1/2 cu. frozen diced Okra

• 1/2 cu. packed Baby spinach

• 2 cubes No-chicken bouillon

• Pepper

Dumplings

• 1/2 cu. All-purpose flour

• 2 Tbs. Nutritional yeast

• 1 1/2 tsp. Olive oil

• 1/2 tsp. Salt

• 2 Tbs. Water

Preparation

Heat oil in a medium pot. Saute the shallot over low-to-medium heat for about 4 minutes. Add the chicken substitute, garlic, celery, parsley, and peppers along with 1/3 cu. water and cook for 5 minutes. Then add the remaining ingredients and 3 2/3 cu. water. Bring to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes.

For the dumplings, simply mix the flour, nutritional yeast, and oil, then drizzle in the water (you may need to add a little extra) and mix. Knead for 2 minutes, form into small balls, flatten, then add to the pot with 10 minutes left.

Discussion

I really enjoyed this soup! I wasn't sure how the dumplings would work out because I've never tried anything like that before. I'm not sure how they are supposed to be, mine were a little doughy, but they were a highlight of the experience. I tried dropping both unflatten and flatten balls and noticed no significant difference. The original recipe called for whole-wheat flour which I didn't have but obviously it would be healthier and perhaps tastier too.

I have a confession. Our grocery store has a pretty good selection of meat substitutes. However, they only carry one cubed chicken substitute and sadly it is not vegan. I waffled but decided to buy it partially for the convenience but also because I wanted the soup to shine and I know the brand, Quorn, has tasty products. I decided I would write them to ask that they remove egg whites from their formulation. They wrote back and said, for now they cannot without compromising quality, but that they are working on it. I don't necessarily think we need a coordinated write-in campaign, but if you are like me you could always let them know. I told them I like their products but I would buy them more often if they were vegan. I guess they probably do market research but hearing back from customers can't hurt.

Nevada

Virgin Islands The only part of the U.S. where vehicles drive on the left

Michigan