LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Country: St. Lucia
Dish: Green fig and salt fish
Location: Lawrenceville
Stop #35
The island of St. Lucia has a population only a fraction of the size of growing Gwinnett County. But the culture of the island is alive and well at one Lawrenceville restaurant.
Just ask Cheryl Constable, co-owner of Le Gomier Restaurant and Event Hall, who uses cuisine as a connection to her home country.
“It’s an opportunity for me to reach and teach, especially the generation coming up now,” Constable, who co-owns the restaurant with her husband Thomas, told At the Table ATL.
The restaurant specializes in Caribbean and Creole Cajun cuisine, but its roots belong to St. Lucia.
“We do birthdays, celebrations, different events … but first we’re a restaurant,” Constable said.
“How does this dish represent St. Lucia?”
“What we have here is our national dish of the island of St. Lucia, which is green bananas and salt fish,” Constable said.
Commonly referred to as "green figs and salt fish," the dish is a mainstay due to the island’s banana crop, Constable said.
“It’s codfish stewed with green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and fresh thyme,” she said. “I would eat this dish as often as it was prepared. In St. Lucia, it could be every week.”
“How does this dish represent Atlanta?”
The dish is just one way Constable can re-connect to the culture of St. Lucia, despite now living more than 2,000 miles from the island. The restaurant even serves as a meeting place for the community.
“We always have meetings to keep the culture going. Usually they meet here,” Constable said. “We are a large diasporic group who live in Gwinnett County.”
Despite the distance, her love for her home country’s cuisine does not diminish.
“I could eat it right now,” Constable said. “Green fig and salt fish is not going anywhere. We’re gonna have this forever.”
At the Table is a digital series produced by 11Alive's Matt Pearl and Liza Lucas. Metro Atlanta features the food of dozens of nations. We want to eat through them all! Follow us on Facebook and share your favorite food stories.