The Blue Food Fes­ti­val is an an­nu­al tourist at­trac­tion high­light­ing part of To­ba­go's culi­nary tra­di­tion and in re­cent years, the in­no­v­a­tive cooks in To­ba­go have been com­ing up with some pret­ty in­ter­est­ing ways to use the hum­ble ground pro­vi­sion. Some of the cre­ations in­clud­ed dasheen crisps, dasheen nuggets, dasheen mousse and dasheen punch. Chef De­bra Sardinha-Mete­vi­er who was chief judge for the Blue Food Fes­ti­val was es­pe­cial­ly hap­py about the cre­ativ­i­ty shown by the cooks. "This rep­re­sent­ed vil­lage cook­ing, it was rus­tic but full of cre­ativ­i­ty. The cooks re­al­ly de­liv­ered," she said. "I?feel that be­cause lots of cooks are more ex­posed to things like Food Net­work and bet­ter cook­books, they're now tak­ing more chances."

Sardinha-Mete­vi­er sees that the Blue Food Fes­ti­val can grow in­to some­thing much big­ger but she hopes it can grow or­gan­i­cal­ly. "This is an event where peo­ple come just to eat, they don't think, 'oh I'll come and hear the mu­sic and get some­thing to eat', they come from ear­ly to sam­ple. I?hope that as it grows, there can be more com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties for the chefs to de­vel­op their skills. We want to raise the bar, but we don't want to lose the orig­i­nal rus­tic feel." One of the recipes, the for­mer Hilton ex­ec­u­tive chef sin­gled out was Pa­tri­cia Shep­pard's dessert, dasheen mousse. "I?re­al­ly liked the mousse, the tex­ture was great and it was such an in­ter­est­ing dessert. It was clear­ly cre­at­ed by some­one with high cook­ing skills."

Dasheen mousse dream cool­er with dasheen tu­ile from Pa­tri­cia Shep­pard

Mousse

1 cup co­conut milk

1 cup con­densed milk

Vanil­la essence

Dash of bit­ters

1 lb boiled dasheen, diced

Tu­ille

40g white sug­ar

40g but­ter, melt­ed

1 egg white

40g dasheen flour

Pinch of salt

1 tsp al­mond essence

Method for mousse

Wash and chop dasheen in­to 1 inch dice.

Blend in food proces­sor with wa­ter to cov­er.

Boil for 20 min­utes on a low fire, stir­ring of­ten.

Al­low to cool.

Stir in re­main­ing in­gre­di­ents and leave to set in re­frig­er­a­tor.

Method for tu­ille

In a bowl, com­bine melt­ed but­ter and white sug­ar and set aside to cool.

In an­oth­er bowl whisk egg white un­til fluffy and add a pinch of salt.

Grad­u­al­ly fold in egg in­to sug­ar mix­ture.

Add sift­ed dasheen flour. Mix to a smooth bat­ter and take care not to over­mix.

Let rest for 30 min­utes in the re­frig­er­a­tor.

Spoon 2 tb­sp of mix­ture on­to a well-greased pan and bake at 320F for 7-10 min­utes or un­til light­ly browned.

Re­move from the oven let cool; when it is cool enough to han­dle, make any shape de­sir­able.

n Serves 12