Name: Zoe Osborne
What you do: Intern Interior Designer
Food rule you had when you were a kid: I had to finish my food, especially at other people’s places. I wasn’t allowed to waste it. It was torture.
Favourite food: What I am making right now.
What are you working on right now: The most interesting thing right now is I’m trying to go back to Barbados. Design-wise, I’m working on a modern and vernacular design.
Day in the life: Horrible. I wake up, eat cereal, if I’m not late, or eat a muffin at café Marché. Then I’ll buy lunch (Freshii, salad, falafel). When I get home, I’ll make some popcorn, find something to eat.
Home cooking carries all the emotion and memories of, well, home, especially when home is nowhere physically close. It tells a story that is visually difficult to represent. Zoe shares her traditional family Sunday meal, Macaroni Pie. I feel very privileged to try this meal with authentic ingredients from Barbados.
Zoe and I met at a dinner design fundraiser. Different design and architect firms around the city designed dinner room settings and patrons dined a very lavish meal in them. Nothing was missed from ceiling to floor. Some designs were dark and minimal, some had widgets hanging from every corner. Although the place and setting of where a person eats affect the taste and perspective of food, Zoe and I seem to find little intersection between the food we eat and our creative lives. Food, for us, was more about fuel, and, most importantly history. It powers where we’re going and brings along the past.
Macaroni Pie
Ingredients:
- 1 box of macaroni (whole wheat)
- 1 square of butter
- 1 onion (diced)
- 1 block of New Zealand cheese or Anchor Bajan cheese grated (This is the most important ingredient. It’s cheddar.)
- 2 dashes of white pepper
- 1 tablespoon whole wheat flour
- 1 cup heavy milk (unsweetened soy milk)
- Ketchup/pasta sauce (1 long squirt)
*Zoe on proportions: It comes down to visual measurements. Example: Make sure there’s enough butter to coat the pan.
Steps by Zoe (I’m just going to let her take over here):
- Boil water.
- Add 1 box of macaroni. You can add salt if you want, but I’m trying not to have hypertension when I get older.
- After pasta is cooked (around 8 minutes), drain and put aside.
White sauce steps:
- Add butter and let simmer for a bit.
- Add onions.
- Add white pepper. You can smell how much you need.
- Stir everything together and let the onions brown. This is the important part where all the flavours come together.
- Add one tablespoon of flour. Make sure there are no clumps.
- Add milk. Heavier the better. I’m just going to use what I usually drink, which is unsweetened soy milk. Add enough to cover the ingredients.
- Stir constantly until thick. If it gets too thick, just add more liquid.
Continued:
- Mix pasta and white sauce together in a large bowl. You can add pasta sauce, but it’s not like the original recipe.
- Add some of the grated cheese.
- Add a squirt of ketchup or pasta sauce. Ketchup is the key ingredient though.
- Put everything into a casserole dish.
- Top with the remaining cheese.
- Decorate the top with ketchup.
- Put the dish in the oven at about 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Take it out when it’s done. I just eyeball it. Stuff like this is all about passing down traditions and family.
Pro tip: Lick the leftover sauce on the spoon and bowl
Why did you choose this recipe?
It’s one of my favourite meals and, in my family, I think I make the second best macaroni pie. My uncle’s is my favourite.
What makes it the best?
It’s funny, we all started with the same recipe. It was my grandmother’s recipe and then we used different cheeses or pasta itself. It could be the method or even how you top it. I’m not sure, it’s just different.
Sundays are the biggest days for eating. Everyone in town brings their own food. The meal is at my house. So, my mother usually brings the rice and the salad. The macaroni pie is usually my job, if not my uncle. My mom, uncle, my cousins, his two children, my mom’s husband, two dogs. That’s every Sunday. Sunday is a family meal.
Because of the children (and me), you have to have macaroni pie. It’s a kid favourite.
Does the cooking get competitive?
No, not really. Everyone is pretty happy. But Christmas was the worst because there was no macaroni pie there.
Because you weren’t there?
No, I was there, but everyone assumed someone else was doing it. And everybody thought, “It’s fine. The children aren’t there.” I was so upset! I literally thought Christmas was ruined for me.
It looks great! It’s like carb on carb.
Oh ya, it’s very bad. It’s not a great meal in terms of nutrition, but it tastes greats.
Is macaroni pie a traditional dish?
Well, it’s not our national dish, but every time you go to a Barbadian’s house or luncheon, you’re fed macaroni pie. People make them different ways too. Some people put egg in it.
Right now, I’m using whole wheat pasta.
Why is the cheese from New Zealand?
I don’t know. That’s just the cheese we eat. I won’t find the same New Zealand Cheese here. My mom bought me this one. This is how I am able to make it.
The one thing that separates macaroni pie from mac n’ cheese is the white sauce.
We also add white pepper to the sauce, which isn’t common.
How did you learn this dish?
It was passed down to me. When I was younger, I would just grate the cheese. Then, when I got older and could use the stove, I would make the white sauce and mix it, which was the most fun part. Then gradually, I started making the whole thing myself.
How would you describe Barbadian food?
It’s very carb based. A lot of rice and peas. Baked chicken (not jerk chicken). More starches, like potatoes and coleslaw. A typical Sunday meal would be macaroni pie, rice, peas, potato salad, coleslaw, garden salad, baked chicken, lamb or pork. During Christmas, you would have ham as well. Gravy. And that’s what you get.
We’re not really roti-oriented, but sometimes we do eat it. Trinidad has a lot of roti, but they do it differently. When you boil it down, it’s a mix of African and all the other people who came over time. There are a lot of dumplings and flour or cassava-based foods. That really speaks to slavery times when people would just use the ground provisions available or what your slave master would have given you. Meat would be from scraps.
How do you think Barbadian food will change in the future?
I think a lot of things will stay the same. Maybe complex meals like, coo coo, will disappear. Not many of the young people know how to make it or like it. Food may become more Americanized, but the flavour will all remain.
People put a lot of salt. If there was one shift, hopefully, it will be less salt and starch. Just making things a bit more healthy. Same dish, same taste.
What would you say is your style of cooking?
Quick. I like to mix things together. A lot of stir-fries.
You were telling me about a project you want to do in Barbados when you return. Did you want to build a community of artists and help restore certain historical sites?
I want to bring people together from different sectors and support each other from working on personal projects, collaborating, going to the gallery, reconnect with some of the heritage sites. The key is doing it together and being inspired. There are a lot of great, powerful people, but they don’t know each other and want to leave Barbados. The island needs these people.
I was just talking about this project in a past conversation, where someone else wanted to make a change with their own project, but didn’t work. There are a lot of people in power that don’t see the benefit of arts, culture and innovation, although tourism is a big part of Barbados. Other reasons are also a lack of funding, projects going through the wrong person, status, fear of change. No one really knows. So, when I talk to people back home, they tell me I’m crazy, I’m going to be frustrated doing anything.
All my friends back there want to leave. They tell me to make use of the opportunities I have here. But I think I can make my own opportunities.