What to eat Seychelles? culinary specialties and gastronomy

It is commonly said that pwason ek diri (fish and rice) is the staple diet of the Seychellois. Just as bread was once the staple food in France, rice is the staple food in the Seychelles. You only have to share a meal with islanders to be convinced. The meal always begins with the serving of rice - ordinary on weekdays, basmati on feast days or if there are guests - which is mounded on the plate.

A host of side dishes are then brought to the table. The rice is crowned with crudités such as tomato salad, onions and patole (a tropical cucumber), a hot dish, accompanying vegetables and sometimes bilimbis, a kind of tangy fruit preserved in vinegar like gherkins. And let's not forget the obligatory finishing touch: chilli sauce, a mixture of crushed chillies with a little oil, lime juice, salt and pepper.

The Seychelles is said to be the world's biggest per capita consumer of fish (an estimated 85 kg per person). Moray eels, crescents, elders, parrots, bourgeois, cobblers, bonito, jacks, mackerel, jobs, rays - so many species with sometimes enigmatic names populate the coral lagoons, not to mention deep-sea fish such as barracuda, tuna and shark. Then there's seafood like shrimps, lobsters, clams and, of course, zourites, small, tasty octopuses.

The riches of the ocean are prepared in a variety of ways: whole, steak, fillets, dumplings, dumplings, minced meat, stew, smoked, salted, grilled, oven-roasted, cooked in a banana leaf, smoked over a wood fire, raw and finely sliced, simmered in a curry, and so on.

Seychelles cuisine wouldn't have the same intensity without the abundance of spices used by local cooks. Nutmeg, cloves, saffron, pepper, allspice and star anise are mainly imported, although there are a few local producers who supply the spice markets. Only cinnamon and vanilla are widely produced in the country.

Introduced to the Seychelles from Sri Lanka with the arrival of the first settlers in 1770, the cinnamon tree thrived in the wild, mainly on the heights of Mahé and Silhouette. Although production has declined, the famous fragrant bark is still harvested, if only to supply the local market. The leaves of the cinnamon tree are also highly prized for flavouring sauces, in the same way as bay leaves in Europe.

Originating in Mexico and belonging to the orchid family, vanilla arrived in the Seychelles in the ^19th century, via Réunion and Mauritius. Easy to wrap around trees, this liana is part of Seychellois daily life. Their day often begins with a cup of vanilla tea, while a cup of vanilla coffee sometimes finishes the meal. It is used to flavor cakes, jams and savory dishes. The plant is widely cultivated in the Seychelles, notably at Union, on the island of La Digue, where the fragrant pods are kept in large trunks to protect them from humidity. Also at l'Union, you can take an informal look at the various stages of artisanal vanilla processing.

The local cuisine can sometimes be a little spicy. In Seychelles, for example, it's sometimes useful to know how to say mon pa manze piman (I don't eat chillies) if you don't want to keep a burning memory of your last meal!

Seychelles cuisine is a melting pot of varied influences, with many specialties shared with other Indian Ocean islands, such as Reunion and Mauritius. One example is the tasty rougail, prepared here with fish rather than sausages as on Reunion Island. It's made with salted, flaked fish mixed with a rougaille sauce of onion, tomato, garlic, ginger and chili pepper.

Originally an Indian dish, curry has been transformed in the region into an infinite variety: bonito curry, egg curry, chicken curry, pork curry, zourite curry, clam curry and so on. The real Seychellois specialty is coconut curry, which differs from traditional curry in that coconut milk is added at the end of cooking, giving it an incomparable creaminess and fragrance. Coconut curry goes beautifully with vegetables such as giraumon, cabbage (chayote), lentils or brèdes (similar to spinach).

The most grandiose fish recipe, the one for feast days, is undoubtedly a whole bourgeois roasted in the oven and flavored with a skilful blend of ginger, onion and chili pepper. This large fish with its fine white flesh is also delicious grilled on the barbecue. Don't forget shark chatini, a spicy shark meat rillettes served cold with bread or rice.

Crustaceans and shellfish include lobsters, teck-teck (small shellfish used to make soups), trouloulous (dwarf crabs), crab-giraffe and of course zourites, also delicious in coconut curry. As you've already guessed, it's best to avoid red meat during your stay in the Seychelles, as local meat consumption is often limited to poultry.

There are traditional dishes that are more exotic for our Western palates. One such dish is civet de chauve-souris (bat stew). This is prepared with the meat of the flying fox, whose appearance and texture are reminiscent of rabbit. This animal feeds mainly on fruit. Needless to say, bat meat is not recommended... As we know only too well, these animals are often vectors of dangerous contagious diseases, especially in the markets where they are kept.

Coconuts, mangoes, bananas, papayas, guavas, avocados, passion fruit, melons, fruits of Kythera, jackfruit, jamalacs, beef hearts, carambola, corossols, feathery sweets, pineapples, oranges, limes, grapefruit: the Seychelles are a tropical paradise where fruit abounds all year round. Some even offer multiple varieties. For example, there are some fifteen varieties of banana: monsieur, mile, de table, mignon, rouge, gabou, saint-jacques, carré, figue, noire, tahiti, quatre-vingt, salega, gros-michel, barbare, malgache, and so on. The same applies to mangoes: blanc, fisette, sabre, maison-rouge, périse, raisin, papaille, congnin, d'aufiner, malabar, tirgrisse, dodo, kinon, torche, etc.

This vast choice can be seen above all in hotels, some of which offer fine fruit buffets, especially at breakfast, and from which pastry chefs draw many desserts, from papaya tart to coconut cake, mango sorbet and banana flambé. In fact, it's hard to find fruit anywhere but in restaurants, except at the Victoria market, especially on Saturday mornings.

But it's the fruit of the breadfruit tree (also known as the tree of life) that is, without doubt, the most unusual on the archipelago. Resembling a large green melon (1 to 3 kg) growing on a tree with gigantic leaves, this opulent fruit has the advantage of lending itself to almost every culinary preparation: stewed, grilled, dumplings, cream, salad, cake, porridge, chatini, chips and so on.

If the day inevitably begins with a cup of local tea, plain or vanilla, it often ends with a so-called zitronel (lemongrass infusion) with its digestive and soothing properties, which tourists take back in their luggage and drink religiously as they reflect on their idyllic vacations. Or, for a touch of freshness, let yourself be tempted by fruit juices or thirst-quenching coconut water.

The national drink is a local lager called SeyBrew. Seychellois are great beer drinkers, ranking tenth in the world in terms of beer consumption, with an annual production of around 7 million liters. SeyBrew is a 4.9-degree lager, launched in 1972, when Seychelles Breweries was founded. This brewery also produces the excellent Eku (a Bavarian made under German license) and the famous Guinness, as black as it is popular, the Seychellois having taken up the habit of drinking it (at room temperature) from the time of the English, which can be a little confusing for us Europeans, who prefer it iced.

Wine enthusiasts will find a few decent bottles of South African wine at the local grocery store, which they will also prefer in restaurants. The small Bordeaux, Chablis and Anjou rosés that make it here are often very expensive compared to their South African cousins.

But the Seychelles' signature drink is calou, a fermented coconut sap - a bit like vin nouveau - whose fermentation time increases the alcohol content. It's impossible to find it in the stores, as its production is subject to a license in order to combat alcoholism. It's amusing to observe the private market that takes place in the evenings at the foot of the coconut palms.

Last but not least, let's not forget rum. Rum is produced by the direct distillation of cane juice and the transformation of its sugar into alcohol. The result is a crystalline agricultural rum with an alcohol content of up to 70 degrees. It can then be upgraded to white rum (ideal for rhum arrangés or cocktails), spiced rum, rhum vieux, rhum coco, etc. In Mahé, on the east coast, you can visit the Takamaka rum distillery after lunch on the Plaine Saint-André.