Past, Present & Beyond...

By Nikia Wells

Photographs Courtesy Of Nikia Wells

Pickled Conch Salad can only be found on the island of Grand Bahama. This variation takes things a step further by adding fresh mango.

The idea of adding fresh pineapple, mango, or even mayonnaise to a bowl of conch salad can either delight or repulse lovers of the simple dish. For many Bahamians, conch salad needs to be simple and in its “original” form – diced conch, mixed with onions, sweet peppers, tomatoes, a bit of sour orange, salt, a little (or a lot) of handmade pepper sauce, and you are good to go.

For decades, Bahamians have harvested conch by hand before expertly knocking the meaty molluscs out of their shells and rubbing them down with salt to clean them. A freshly caught conch is tender and sweet, and the best conch salad is prepared just a few minutes after the conch has left the seawater.

Conch salad can be found almost every and anywhere in The Bahamas – from roadside shacks in small coastal settlements, to fine dining restaurants like Dune. While the decades-old origins of conch salad are debatable, many islands have created their own distinct variations over the years.

New Providence is said to be the birthplace of tropical conch salad, a blend that includes fresh mango, pineapples, and sometimes apples. Many Bimini vendors add in a bit of garlic salt to their mix. Grand Bahama’s Shabbo’s and Sherry’s are the only spots in The Bahamas to find pickled conch salad. And some islands even add in boiled conch or conch “bubbies” (or breasts, excess tough/blackened skin) to their salad.

However, the most controversial conch salad addition is perhaps mayonnaise – a popular Abaco variation.

Chef Garrette Bowe, who is originally from Grand Bahama, is currently an integral part of the Marcus restaurant team. Owner and world-renowned Iron Chef Marcus Samuelsson praises Chef Garrette for sharing the art of conch salad making with him and allowing him to bring the dish to his restaurant’s menu at Baha Mar.

While the talented Chef Garrette is no stranger to creating complex flavours and dishes, she still thinks that there is something special about conch salad and how it connects Bahamians to each other and visitors alike.

“I think that conch salad has become the national spotlight dish of The Bahamas. The evolution and creation of different variations of our humble conch salad has opened doors for Bahamians to stay true to our roots while also giving us more self-expression on the stable dishes that we truly understand.” UA