Your Ultimate Guide To Barbados

This traditional dish in Barbados mostly consists of pigeon peas. It is alleged that this dish is a corruption of the Scottish dish haggis which is a dish containing sheep's heart, liver with spices, onion, salt and stock. Stock is made by cooking various ingredients in water e.g. meat, bones, herbs and spices. Many persons in Barbados think that jug jug was a creative result of a poor Barbadian stuck with peas, corn and meat. Okras are sometimes chopped and cooked in this dish. This is a very rich dish and is served in a casserole topped with butter. It is traditionally an accompaniment to boiled ham at Christmas in Barbados.

Some Health Benefits of Pigeon Peas

Pigeon peas have many natural benefits. They are used for treating jaundice, baldness, inflammation, piles and checking breast milk secretion. 

Jaundice is treated by the juice extracted from the leaves of the pulse. The pulse is an edible seed from a pod. When the paste made from the pulse is used on any balding spots regularly, the bald spots diminish. When applied on the breast, the paste is effective as it checks the secretion of milk.

Inflammatory conditions and swelling are treated by the leaves of the plant of the pigeon pea. 

To treat piles combine the paste of the pea leaves and the paste of neem leaves and consume the paste daily for a week. Neem is an Asian tree grown for its bark and seed oil.

Traditional Recipe for Jug Jug

Ingredients needed are pork, beef, water, hot pepper, pigeon peas, butter, guinea corn, onion, parsley and thyme.

Method

Cut up meat, chop thyme, parsley and chives. Cook pork for twenty (20) minutes then add beef. Season with salt if fresh meat is used. Add pepper, peas and cook for thirty (30) minutes or until peas are soft. Strain and reserve stock. Mince meat finely. Add peas and pound in a mortar or put in an electric blender. 

In a pot, add thyme, parsley, chives and onion to reserved liquid and boil for five (5) minutes. Add guinea corn slowly and stir briskly for ten (10) minutes. Add meat and peas puree to pot and cook over low flame for twenty (20) minutes. Stir in butter. Serve in heated crock. Oats are a good substitute for guinea corn.