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00:08Ainsley's Taste of the Bahamas,
00:10brought to you by Nassau and Paradise Island.
00:19The best way to experience the true flavor of a place
00:22is through its food.
00:24So I'm off on my culinary travels again.
00:30I'm looking for dishes with a story to tell.
00:33It's an aphrodisiac.
00:38Traditions passed down through generations.
00:44And the freshest and ziniest of ingredients from land and sea.
00:49So here I am in the Bahamas,
00:51exploring islands of white sands, turquoise seas
00:55and food that is as vibrant as its people.
00:59From hidden beach shacks and fish fries.
01:02Ooh, a little bit of sesame.
01:05To fine dining with a Caribbean twist.
01:08It's out in this world.
01:09Scoop it up.
01:10Mmm.
01:11Mmm.
01:12This is the last bottle known to man.
01:14Wow.
01:14I'm diving headfirst into the flavors, the colors
01:19and the rhythms of island life.
01:23So come on, grab a plate, loosen that belt
01:26and join me in my quest as I search for a lick a bit of island zest.
01:31Welcome.
01:32Taste of the Bahamas.
01:42The Bahamas is a chain of hundreds of islands and coral shallows
01:46in the warm Atlantic Ocean.
01:48Just a short hop from Florida.
01:50And right at the heart of it all are Nassau and Paradise Island.
01:54My Bahamian base.
01:56The Bahamas is a culinary crossroads.
02:00A place where flavors from all over the world have met, mixed and made themselves at home.
02:06So today, I'll be cooking seaside with a Greek chef, bringing a Bahamian touch to a Mediterranean classic.
02:14Well, this is the first time I'm having a Greek salad with a Bahamian twist.
02:18I'll be exploring one of the most extraordinary wine cellars in the world.
02:23Price that, $32,000.
02:25How much?
02:26$32,000.
02:27Wow.
02:28Unbelievable.
02:29And I'll be preparing my take on a pork souvlaki with a Caribbean twist.
02:35Sovlaki.
02:36Satsuki.
02:42But first, a quick trip to a morning market to see how the locals take ideas from around the world
02:48and make them their own.
02:51Good morning, sir.
02:52Welcome to Brownie in Your Belly.
02:54Brownie in Your Belly.
02:56I love that.
02:58This little market brings local food producers together once a week to sell their homemade goodies.
03:03And even in something as simple as bread, you see a mix of local and international flavours.
03:10Our local flavours is a rum-ridden loaf.
03:12Then we've got a homemade coconut loaf.
03:15Then I have some international flavours with spinach and seeds inside of it.
03:18Tomato and basil flatbreads, rosemary and lemon, spinach and garlic.
03:23And then our native bananas, so your banana bread that we eat for breakfast.
03:27Next up, a selection of patties, a bit like our pasties, but flakier and usually with a bit of a
03:33kick.
03:34So the green dot is crab.
03:36Mm-hmm.
03:36So to remember, we collect crabs here in the bush.
03:40The green is in the bush.
03:41Oh, wow.
03:42And the red is lobster, so like red lobster.
03:47Mm-hmm.
03:47Yeah.
03:48And then the blue is the ocean deep blue, and so we get the salmon and we get the grouper.
03:54Okay.
03:55I'm actually on the lookout for some seasoning, and this next stall has caught my eye.
04:00So which one do you think I should go for?
04:03I think we should go with this one, rosemary, lemon, garlic.
04:06Mm.
04:07Yeah.
04:07Okay.
04:08Let's have a little bit of a...
04:11Oh, yeah.
04:12That's beautiful.
04:13Do you smell all the notes there?
04:14Oh, that's lovely.
04:16Mm.
04:17So I'm all seasoned up for later, and all I need now is a snack.
04:21I couldn't resist it.
04:22I need a crab patty.
04:23Go on, give me a crab patty.
04:25That's good.
04:26And I've just got to have some of that banana bread.
04:28What I recommend, a nice cup of tea.
04:31Yeah.
04:31Slice of banana bread.
04:33Perfect.
04:34Perfect combination.
04:34Perfect combination.
04:36You're not English, are you?
04:37You're not from Yorkshire.
04:39Nice cup of tea and a bit of banana bread.
04:41I might see if I go a little far back.
04:43I'm just going to go and put the kettle on.
04:45All right.
04:47I don't think he was from Yorkshire, but you never know.
04:50There are lots of communities here with European connections, but one in particular has had
04:55a big influence on the food culture.
04:59When you look out onto that turquoise water, you could almost be in Greece, couldn't you?
05:05Perhaps that's why some Greek families feel so at home here.
05:09And also why, on Bahamian menus, you get a touch of Mediterranean magic.
05:16There's been a healthy Greek population here in the Bahamas since the early 1900s, when many
05:22Greeks brought their sponge diving expertise to these islands.
05:26Two years ago, chef Chris Geiger added to that population and brought his Mediterranean
05:30cookery skills with him.
05:32There's a lot of Greek influence going on here.
05:35I see we're going to finish off a Greek salad there, but are this spanakopita?
05:39This spanakopita is one of the most Greek traditional Greek dishes when I make it here.
05:44Yeah.
05:45So, the first ingredient is flying phyllo pastry.
05:49A bit of a challenge when you're cooking al fresco in the wind.
05:53So, we have the phyllo.
05:55Yeah.
05:56Already are mixed with spinach, feta, yoghurt, all the herbs inside.
06:05Beautiful.
06:06And it's always the same recipe? Do you ever change it?
06:09We don't have the same recipe.
06:11In Greece, like my mother and my grandmother, we never use the same recipe.
06:16Whatever fresh ingredients we have every seasonal, we use it.
06:20Okay.
06:21So, yeah.
06:22Isn't that lovely?
06:23Okay.
06:23So, when you go to your granny's house, you're going to say,
06:25oh, don't worry about that recipe.
06:27I'm doing it my way.
06:28Yeah, beautiful.
06:29Okay.
06:30I put that in.
06:32Oh, lovely.
06:34That's really interesting.
06:35He's just taken a little bit of the natural Greek yoghurt to act as a kind of a,
06:39a bit of a glue to hold it together.
06:41You happy with that, Chef?
06:43I'm super happy.
06:44Yeah, what happens now?
06:45Yes.
06:46Now, I will call Eduardo.
06:48Uh-huh.
06:48They will cook for us.
06:49Hello, Eduardo.
06:50Cheers, Chef.
06:51Thank you very much indeed.
06:53Lovely.
06:54Okay.
06:54And now the Greek salad.
06:55Yes, let's go for the Greek salad now.
06:58Chris's salad starts off with all the classic Greek ingredients.
07:01I have, like, onions, peppers, olive oils.
07:05Uh, yeah.
07:06And the capers.
07:07The capers, of course.
07:09I'm going to add, Chef, you can pass me some tomatoes.
07:11Okay, Chef.
07:12Yeah.
07:13We can pass some tomatoes.
07:15Okay.
07:16And what's the secret of a good Greek salad?
07:19The secret is oregano.
07:22Oregano!
07:22Oh, no.
07:25That's what my Greek family used to say.
07:26This oregano, this comes from Greece, from Kalibnos.
07:30Yeah.
07:31Okay.
07:31Beautiful.
07:33All right, then.
07:34If you hold that there, Chef, and I come here, and then you can see, look.
07:41Sorry.
07:42Oh, life is about humour, isn't it?
07:45I've got to say, it's not always this windy in the Bahamas.
07:48No.
07:48Normally, everything is wonderful and calm, but when it's windy...
07:52It's windy.
07:52It's windy.
07:53It's windy.
07:53Oh, I love it.
07:54Now it's time to mix things up with some mango.
07:58I add it because I like it to have a twist of a Caribbean flavour.
08:02Yeah.
08:02And some heat.
08:04It's a couple of difficult chilli flavours.
08:07Oh, lovely.
08:08You can add in a salad.
08:09Beautiful.
08:10Straight in there.
08:11Absolutely lovely.
08:13Our famous Greek oil.
08:15Yeah.
08:15Beautiful.
08:17Chris's philosophy is that food should be an experience.
08:20It's not just about the flavours.
08:24My goal is to create memories to the customers, so when they go back to our country, maybe
08:29US or Europe, so to remember this place about the food, and every time when I taste a Greek
08:36salad or in another place, to remind Bahamas, to remind Solomar.
08:40Beautiful.
08:41Beautiful.
08:42Well said, Chef.
08:42Now, we've got the spanakopita coming back.
08:46Yes.
08:46What are you going to serve it with?
08:47I want to make you a quickly dip.
08:49Yeah.
08:50Fresh dip for the spanakopita.
08:51Okay.
08:52So we can eat together.
08:53So I have 100% Greek yoghurt.
08:55They come from Greece.
08:56Oh, let me have a look here now.
08:58What have we got here?
08:59I have some cucumber, I have garlic, I have some mint, and some green onions.
09:04Beautiful.
09:06You're going in?
09:06And shall I put some lemon in for you?
09:08Yeah, you can chop some lemon for me.
09:10I need some lemon juice from inside.
09:13So, a few finishing touches.
09:18Fantastic.
09:19So, we Greek here, of course, when I add some olive oil.
09:23Mm-hmm.
09:23With lemon.
09:32And there you have it, spanakopita and Greek salad with mango and spicy peppers.
09:39Wow, Chef.
09:40Well, this is the first time I'm having a Greek salad with a Bahamian twist.
09:44Let me get some of that lovely oil.
09:46Here are those capers.
09:52Tell me.
09:54EFARISTO.
09:55Ha, ha, ha.
09:57Well, as they say in the Bahamas, one love pan de plia.
10:02Thank you, Chris.
10:04Welcome, welcome.
10:05Next up, I continue to explore the mix of cultures as I head down into a wine cellar
10:11that has to be seen to be believed.
10:14Price at $200,000.
10:18And I rustle up some Bahamian Mediterranean pork skewers.
10:23Every time I see this, it reminds me of stopping off at your local kebab shop.
10:28Ha, ha, ha.
10:38Ainsley's Taste of the Bahamas, brought to you by Nassau and Paradise Island.
10:58Welcome back to the Bahamas.
11:00Today, I'm finding out how this place became a meeting point for flavors from all over the world.
11:05I've been picking up a bit of inspiration at a local market.
11:09Rosemary, lemon, garlic.
11:10Mmm.
11:10Mmm.
11:12Oh.
11:13And cooking up a Greek classic with some Bahamian love.
11:17I add it because I like it to have a twist of the Caribbean flavor.
11:20Next, I'm headed to a historic location to uncook a surprise or two.
11:27I'm in Old Town Nassau and this blue plaque here was presented to the Greycliff Hotel as a way of
11:34saying thank you for promoting English heritage and wine.
11:37In fact, it was the first blue plaque to be presented to an establishment outside of the UK.
11:45I've heard the wine cellar here is a wine connoisseur's dream with a range of bottles from today's most popular
11:51vintages to some of the rarest and oldest on the planet.
11:59Overseeing it all is sommelier Gino Ford.
12:03Gino.
12:03Hi, Ainsley.
12:04How are you?
12:05Great.
12:05Welcome.
12:05I'm so looking forward to this.
12:07It's a pleasure to meet you.
12:08We've been waiting for you.
12:09Please, call me right this way.
12:10Watch your head as we go through.
12:12Oh, wow.
12:12Stepping through the door, the temperature changes in an instant from tropically hot to totally chilled.
12:19This is pretty impressive, isn't it, eh?
12:22This is something else.
12:23Yeah.
12:24Gino, how many bottles are we talking about?
12:26We've only got about 5,000 bottles of wine here.
12:29Well, Ainsley, we have a little over 280,000 bottles currently in the collection.
12:33We have the third largest privately owned collection in the world.
12:37Why don't you follow me right this way?
12:38Go straight ahead.
12:39Are you being serious?
12:40Yeah, I'll show you something over here.
12:41200?
12:42What?
12:43Oh, my word.
12:46Oh, wow.
12:48Take a left here.
12:49I'll show you our million dollar rack.
12:51This is incredible.
12:53Every cellar has its prized shelf, but the one down here is just a bit special.
13:02Everything in the rack totals up to a million dollars, ranging from $10,000 up to $45,000 a bottle.
13:08Now, one of my more favorite wines I'd like to show, we have a 1928 Chateau Lafitte Rothschild.
13:17Now, this is the oldest Lafitte we have on our list.
13:19This is the original cork.
13:20It's been recorked once by the Lafitte company.
13:23It's priced at $32,000.
13:25How much?
13:25$32,000.
13:27Wow.
13:28Unbelievable.
13:29And can I hold it?
13:30Sure.
13:30Yeah.
13:33Yeah.
13:35Great kid you bought it.
13:36I know.
13:37I know.
13:38What is that?
13:39Six grand a glass?
13:40Easy.
13:41Easy.
13:42Easy.
13:42Easy, you say as if it's nothing.
13:44Easy.
13:44Oh, I'll put that back very delicately.
13:47And what about this here?
13:48Why has this got its own little casing?
13:51So, this little wine here is the jewel of the wine cellar.
13:54This is a 1727 Rudersheimer Apostolwien half bottle German dessert wine from the region of Rheingau in Germany.
14:02Many wine experts believe this to be the oldest drinkable bottle of wine available today.
14:07And priced at $200,000.
14:15I'm speechless.
14:16I don't think I've ever seen a bottle of wine that is worth that amount of money.
14:22That is extraordinary.
14:23So, you can either buy a house or you can have a couple of glasses of wine.
14:28Have two glasses of wine.
14:31Greycliff was built in the 1740s, so these corridors have been walked by pirates, soldiers and prisoners.
14:40The American Navy was posted here, and so this was actually a prison.
14:44This is the original door from 1776.
14:48They had actually prison cells down here.
14:50Frightening though, isn't it, eh?
14:52To think that was a prisoner.
14:53Now, it's your...
14:54Wine cellar.
14:55Exactly.
14:56It's your wine cellar.
14:57OK, where are we going now?
14:59You have to do some tasting, right this way.
15:00OK, you go ahead, you show me.
15:02Choosing a wine down here isn't simple.
15:05You don't just flick through a list.
15:06You read your way through 280,000 possibilities.
15:12But you'd need all afternoon to look through that, wouldn't you, eh?
15:15Five minutes, I got you covered.
15:17Five minutes.
15:19Having made it safely to the heart of the cellar without knocking over anything that might cost more than a
15:24top-of-the-range sports car,
15:25I'm celebrating with champagne.
15:28Here we are.
15:30Cheers.
15:31Cheers.
15:31Cheers to you too.
15:37Oh.
15:38That's lovely.
15:39That's nice.
15:40So, what are we looking for?
15:41So, when you have a sparkling wine or a champagne, what's the things that you can say,
15:47I can tell this is brilliant because...
15:49You're looking for clarity, you will be clean, fruity and a lot of effervescence.
15:55That's a great sign of a well-produced champagne.
16:05Wonderful.
16:06What a pleasure.
16:07Pleasure, my friend.
16:07Yeah, cheers.
16:11Back with my flamingo friends at my seaside kitchen and inspired by my culinary travels today,
16:16I'm going to make a pork slovaki with some Bahamian flavour.
16:20Well, after visiting Solymar, I've decided to come back and I've been inspired a little bit.
16:25So, I'm going to do for you something which is traditionally Greek, slovlaki,
16:29but I'm going to call it my pineapple rum pork skewers with a pineapple tzatziki
16:35and a delicious green Greek salad.
16:39Shall we crack on?
16:41Well, we're talking about these wonderful bits of pork that need to be flavoured up.
16:47How are we going to do that?
16:48Well, a bit of pineapple juice going in there.
16:54Followed by a touch of rum.
16:56Yeah, I know.
16:58Everything seems to have a little bit of rum in it.
17:01Well, you know, why not?
17:02Some honey for sweetness.
17:05A bit of citrusness.
17:07Got to be lime, isn't it?
17:08Yeah.
17:11And a touch of juice too.
17:13Why not?
17:17Just squeeze that in there like that.
17:20Yeah, get the lime in there.
17:21Touch of mustard.
17:26And it wouldn't be Greek without the oregano, would it?
17:29So, a good pinch of the oregano going in there.
17:33And I've got a couple of mixes of spice here.
17:36But one, the paprika is the sweet paprika.
17:39All right, not the smoky variety.
17:41And of course, I've got a little bit of cayenne pepper going in there too.
17:44So, let's just put a touch of that in there.
17:47And then I'm adding some garlic, fresh thyme and a pinch of salt.
17:52What goes on top of Susie's salt?
17:55Percy pepper.
17:58Oh, sweet memories.
18:00There you go.
18:02If it gets you cooking, that's the most important thing.
18:06That's my policy anyway.
18:08Now to add the pork to my marinade.
18:10All of that's going in there.
18:12That's okay.
18:15Just work that around.
18:17After you've marinated that for a couple of hours, check this out.
18:21This is what we have here, look.
18:23That's beautiful.
18:24Let's take on a little bit of colour there,
18:26which I'm really happy about.
18:28Because then, I can start to skewer it up.
18:32That's okay.
18:40And just slide those onto your skewers.
18:45Every time I see this, it reminds me of coming home a bit late at night,
18:51stopping off at your local kebab shop.
18:59Beautiful.
19:00That is perfect.
19:02All right then.
19:05There you go.
19:07Oh, I think they're perfect.
19:09And they're ready to pop onto the barbie.
19:12All right.
19:16Flamingo.
19:20And while those bad boys are cooking, I'll get on with my tzatziki.
19:25Let's get the Greek yogurt in there.
19:31That's lovely.
19:32Followed by my cucumber.
19:34And what I've done is I've just grated that cucumber.
19:37And I've squeezed out the excess water.
19:39Really important that.
19:40Otherwise it gets a bit too sloppy.
19:42So just squeeze all of that out.
19:44You can see that.
19:46Beautiful.
19:47And then what's a little bit different out here in the Bahamas
19:52is a fru... fru...
19:54a little bit with the pineapple.
19:57And then I'm just going to shred up some of this fresh mint here.
20:02All right.
20:07Beautiful.
20:08And then I'm adding a little bit of grated garlic.
20:12And some of that lovely chilli.
20:14Let's just get rid of some of those seeds and stuff.
20:17There you go.
20:22A little bit of that lemon zest.
20:24It's all about the zest.
20:26The zest.
20:27The zest.
20:27The zest.
20:28It's all about the zest.
20:30And some juice.
20:32The juice.
20:33Oh, yeah.
20:34Give it a good squeeze.
20:36The zest.
20:42Pineapple tzatziki at your service.
20:44Let's do our salad.
20:46And then we can serve up.
20:48Honey here.
20:48A little honey going into my dressing.
20:52Our oregano.
20:52Wouldn't be the same without a little touch of oregano in there.
20:56And a little bit of olive oil.
20:58A squeeze of lemon.
21:00And a pinch of salt and pepper.
21:04And a simple but delicious dressing in seconds.
21:10As long as you've got the ingredients, that is.
21:13Yes, Ainsley.
21:14Yes.
21:16My salad is a mix of chopped lettuce, fresh mint parsley and grated coconut.
21:22Tossed in that zingy and zesty dressing.
21:28And I think it's about time that we've served up.
21:33Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.
21:39And when you put it all together, you've got yourself a plate full of Greco-Bohamian gorgeousness.
21:51And there you have it.
21:53My pineapple and rum pork skewers with a green salad and pineapple tzatziki.
21:59Yeah.
22:00Souvlaki.
22:00Tzatziki.
22:03Easy peasy.
22:04Lemon squeezy.
22:10You know, there's something magical about cultures coming together through food.
22:15Whether I'm in the marketplace, cooking in a Greek restaurant or exploring the most amazing wine cellar.
22:22Food brings people together.
22:26What more do you want?
22:55Ainsley's Taste of the Bahamas.
22:57Brought to you by Nassau and Paradise Island.
22:59Today, let's go, shes out, i vps.得준...
22:59time in the event about drowning, which it's
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