She left the island, but Hampton family's meals still have a Caribbean flavor

FISH FROM THE WARM CARIBBEAN, fruit from the trees, sweet potatoes from the earth and hot bread straight from the frying pan - that was dinner in the Belmont neighborhood of Port au Spain, Trinidad, home to Pat Forde until she left the island for New York City.

"We would never just cook meat and a potato like you sometimes find here," she said. "We cooked all kinds of food." Not only was there a large assortment of favorite dishes - pots of curry, spicy vegetables and creamy crab callaloo - but also large quantities. "There were nine of us," Forde said, "so we cooked every meal, every day."

Breakfast featured the traditional Caribbean "bake" - rounds of dough leavened with baking powder and fried in butter in the skillet. Bake would be served with plenty of butter and jam for breakfast, New Zealand cheddar cheese for lunch or with shark or salt fish for family dinners.

A piece of dried cod was soaked for hours to release some of the salt, then served with "provision," a Trinidadian mix of starchy island vegetables: yucca, plantain, sweet potatoes, dasheen (taro) root. The boiled roots, vegetables and fruits were simmered until tender, then sliced and served with an island "gravy" of stewed tomatoes and onions flavored with the cod.

Forde, third from the youngest of the three sons and six daughters, moved to New York to join Michael Forde, a childhood friend who later became her husband. The Air Force sent the young couple all over and finally to Hampton, where they remained after his retirement from the military. Pat Forde works as a career information specialist for Thomas Nelson Community College and also is studying business management at Strayer University. They have two children - Kevin and Cherrell.

Callaloo was a special treat, combining dense green vegetables - dasheen leaves and ochra (called ochroe on the island) with the sweet, creamy milk of the coconut. Forde uses spinach or creamed spinach in place of the Caribbean greens. Her mother, Olga Marin, added chives, sweet chopped peppers, onions, and plenty of ground black pepper to this traditional dish. The greens got another layer of flavor from Dungeness crab legs simmered in the same pot. "We'd pull out the crab legs and crack them while we ate the greens," Forde said. "They were delicious together."

Trinidad, an island off the coast of Venezuela, is a melting pot, Forde said, with African, Chinese and native Indian influences on its culture and food. Wonderful smells and tastes are everywhere. The mellow tropical taste of coconut sweetens many dishes, adding richness and substance to rice and peas as well as the callaloo the Marin family enjoyed.

At home, the Caribbean legume called "pigeon peas" were flavored with onion and hot pepper and the rice was sautéed in sugar before simmering. Forde uses canned Goya pigeon peas, but at home the starchy little peas were bought fresh and shelled, or dried in packages.

Curries are everywhere on the island, and one of Forde's favorites is chicken curry. She blends the curry powder with water, and lets the cut-up chicken sit for a while with its flavorful coating before cooking it in water until tender.

When Forde left New York, she wondered if she'd be able to find all the ingredients she needed to cook the traditional dishes of her childhood. That hasn't been a problem, she said, and now there are several specialty markets in the area. She finds many of the ingredients she needs at Montego Caribbean Grocery on Holland Road in Virginia Beach. "If I can't get to one of them, I can usually find what I need at an Asian market," she said.

Pat and Michael Forde are active in the Virginia Caribbean American Cultural Association, a group that sponsors CaribFest, an annual festival where the Caribbean Diaspora - and other fans of Caribbean culture, music and food - gather and celebrate the music and colorful dress of the islands and sample dishes like the ones that fed Pat Forde's large family in their island home.