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Fish tea is a seafood chowder that is a staple in Caribbean cuisine, especially Jamaican. It is made with fish, fish stock, and various vegetables and spices. The traditional recipe takes up to four hours to prepare and is often consumed for its supposed health benefits.
Fish tea isn’t actually technically a tea. It is a seafood chowder that is a staple for Caribbean, especially Jamaican cuisine. According to Caribbean cuisine experts, seafood tea is styled as a tea rather than a soup to differentiate it from a thicker, richer seafood chowder that’s also popular in Jamaica. There are traditional and more modern versions of this recipe that can be found on the internet.
Preparing a traditional fish tea is a long and complex process that can take up to four hours to prepare from start to finish. As expected, the main ingredient is fish. Five pounds of fish are used to make five liters of tea. Fish stock can be used to enhance the flavor of the fish, and the recipe traditionally called for the bones of the fish to be included. Now that fish fillets are readily available for purchase, many people choose not to include whole fillets complete with bones.
When working with fresh, whole fish, they must first be descaled and added whole to boiling water. After cooking for several hours, the fish must be deboned and the meat is then crumbled into the broth. The individual pieces of fish quickly become mushy and eventually take on an almost liquid consistency.
There are many other ingredients that are then added to the broth to add variety. Cooks making seafood tea can add carrots, cho-cho – also known as chayote, a vegetable often used in Caribbean cooking, and coconut milk, as well as yam, squash, cassava, and potatoes. These are boiled with the fish until all solid ingredients are soft and liquefied. After a heavy boil, relish, salt, pepper, shallots and thyme are also added.
In many shops in the Caribbean, fish tea can be purchased pre-made. Packaged forms of the soup are also available. Consumers of packaged soups generally need to replenish dehydrated feed or add water to a fish tea concentrate. Using the concentrate reduces the time and money that would otherwise be spent making the tea.
A variety of legends and rumors surround the practice of drinking fish tea. In Jamaica, the Rastafarian religion has embraced the consumption of fish tea as a healthy and beneficial practice. Others believe fish tea is an aphrodisiac or fertility aid. It is said that men who drink tea are more likely to father twins.
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