Hello.
I am standing outside of Fort Christian
here in St. Thomas on the US Virgin Islands.
Today I am going to be joining St. Thomas Food Tours
for their historic Main Street tour.
1571 maybe around there, you know.
We have a unofficial slogan here, close enough.
The fort got built because the Danish government
sent settlers here for farming.
Farming was tough but every time they did get a crop,
the Pirates would sail into the harbor, take all their stuff and sail away.
They went to the Danish government and said,
If you want us to be your emissaries here,
you got to give us a little defense,
put up something to stop these pirates from coming in.
Up on that hillside, the big white buildings up there,
Bluebeard's Castle Resort.
He wasn't a pirate, he wasn't an emergent, he didn't exist.
There was no such guy.
So, that whole hillside is a scam.
Altough it's a very lovely scam.
When it opens again,
it's got great hotels, a couple of terrific restaurants,
a pool where you can sit by the side of the pool
and wave to the bartender and they bring your drink over.
And the first hurricane that went through
destroyed all the chicken coops
and the chickens were free to do what chickens do,
and now we have hundreds of thousands chickens.
Weapon in one hand and a conch shell in the other.
The idea was to blow the shell having the enslaved people hearing,
and say, you're gonna have a protest,
let's figure out what are we going to do.
No, we don't really want to be slaves here.
Built originally for a French sea cap who made a ton of money.
Streets had to be built a certain way, you couldn't make a flat street,
so they made stairs streets.
Got over 47 stair streets around the city.
Government put money aside to pay painters
to go around and beautify the post office,
and the guy who pull the lucky ticket to come down here
and paint this one he was a fellow named Stefan
and he was a great artist, I wanna show you...
Wow.
This was the first real neighborhood on the island.
The folks that were building the fort came and live in this area here.
This is a wonderful tea made from the hibiscus flower.
-I love your cup Gerard. -They're pretty, yeah.
You got the special one.
During my research, my due diligence job,
I realize that it works very well...
Oh, I like that.
Selfish quiche, yes.
This is so good.
Thank you.
This is tamarind cake.
It almost has like a lemon flavor.
Very delicious.
People are very resourceful.
One of the things that Judy said to me.
No parts of anything go unused here.
We use the skin to do one thing,
we use the beak to do another.
So they really, really use up the items.
-Thank you. -Thank you Judy.
We are now on our way to Gladys's café,
this is owned and operated by a woman named Gladys
and she's been doing this for about maybe over 50 years now.
She's in her seventies,
we're weren't given an exact age
but she runs this six days a week.
Every single week, year round.
This is the temporary dining area.
They're in a new location now because of the hurricane,
they got to fix the other place.
-This is like soil food. -It is, it is.
Are going to eat that? Or you just got started?
-I'm sorry, I'm just so... -This is mine.
-Cheers. -There you go.
We've got the mango one which is Polene's favorite.
That one is mango.
-No, this is mango. -This is mango.
Oil and vinegar, mustard and tomato, is the other one.
There you go.
Come here to say hi.
-Hi Gladys. -Hi.
We just heard your stories, he said really wonderful things about you.
Yeah, working so hard trying to do my house
trapped in the original restaurant which is right next door,
it got damaged during the hurricane,
specially the floor 'cause the ocean came in.
It was really, really hard time.
By the way, Gladys, she drives to market
every day at 5:00 a.M. Actually she goes three different markets
in order to get the freshest ingredients for all of the meals
that they cook at that restaurant.
I go to three of them
I go to the around the field and Frenchtown
Frenchtown. OK.
See what I can see, what I can get.
And you got to be early.
-Nice talking with you guys. -Thank you.
That food was delicious.
Over there, the large building on the left point,
that is the Marriott hotel
and that, it would be closed until, it looks like 2020.
Now, we're going to have some Caribbean sweet food.
These ladies have been making patte here for over 40 years
And they really got it.
And it's a spicy beef wrapped in a wonderful dough,
that gets fried, not terribly juicy
very, very tasty.
This is our last soup with the St.Thomas Food Tours.
Here we are going to have the famous signature
alcoholic beverage of St. Thomas which is the bushwhacker.
Cheers.
I actually don't drink, like at all.
You know, I'm doing it for the culture.
Cheers to new friends.
Thank you Gerard.
Thank you, yes.
That is it for the food and culture tour with St. Thomas Food Tours.
When you visit St. Thomas in the US and virgin islands
then you need to book a tour with St. Thomas Food Tours
because it is phenomenal.
Our tour guide was Gerard
and he was so nice and so informative,
he really, really knows the history of St. Thomas,
so if you can get a tour with him then I cannot recommend it enough.
We had so much food during this tour and it was so delicious,
you can just tell that the ingredients were fresh
and it was made with so much love
I just, Oh, so good.
If you want more information about this tour then I'll put links down below
but definitely check out Stthomasfoodtours.Com
and subscribe to me and follow me
I am @redromina everywhere,
I make videos just like this one every single week,
so you don't want to miss out on all this goodness.
But for now I'm gonna go.
So, I will see you when I see you, bye!
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