Chefs take Middle Quarters style to MoBay

Claudia Gardner, Assignment Coordinator

WESTERN BUREAU:

There were many interesting booths at the Rainforest Seafood Festival on Ash Wednesday, and the Middle Quarters Shrimp Village was one of them.

ATTRACTED MANY

The village stood out and attracted many because of the wide variety of seafood dishes it had on offer to patrons. The cooks who made up the village were from the Almond Tree Stop and Billy's Grassy Park Restaurant in the Middle Quarters community in St Elizabeth, which merged for the day.

They travelled from their base in St Elizabeth and were at the Catherine Hall Entertainment Centre in Montego Bay from as early as 6 a.m. to start the preparations of the seafood dishes, which included curried shrimp, garlic shrimp, shrimp soup, salt-fish fritters, shrimp fritters, peppered shrimp, fried fish, roasted fish, seafood-mix soup, among others.

Head chef Ian Kerr told The Gleaner that even though Middle Quarters was synonymous with having an abundance of shrimp, he still relied on buying pre-packaged shrimp because during times of drought, the river shrimp supply dwindled, and in addition, there was a demand for the seawater shrimp.

"We bought the shrimp from Rainforest for this event, because during the drought, the river shrimp gets low, so we have to use the sea shrimp ... and you have some people who love the sea shrimp - the softness of it and thing - but you have some people who definitely want the river shrimp, so you have to have them both.

"To me, the river shrimp is better because it is something I am used to from I was a boy, but the sea shrimp has a little sweetish taste that people love, plus the fact that it is also fleshy," he added.