La Vie Bahame

Most people go to Nassau for water sports or the casinos. I go there to eat conch. This large mollusk, with its delicate meat, is enjoyed throughout the Caribbean and Florida. But nowhere does it taste better than at Arawak Cay in Nassau in the Bahamas.

Conch (pronounced “conk”) is a giant sea snail whose knobbed, flaring, pink-white shell has been a symbol of the Bahamas for centuries. The island’s first settlers, the Arawak Indians, used the shells to make axes, scrapers and trumpets. Later generations carved the shells into cameos and pulverized them to make terrazzo floors. Today, a giant concrete sculpture of a conch greets visitors at the Nassau airport.

The best use for the sweet white meat of the conch is eating it, a fact apparent the instant you visit Arawak Cay. If you want to escape the high-rise tourist enclaves and rub elbows with the natives, run, don’t walk, to this park at the entrance of the harbor.

Cook shacks line the road along the cay, each specializing in conch. There are jerk conch, cracked (batter-fried) conch, scotched conch (marinated with lime juice and chiles) and finger-burning conch fritters.

The most popular dish here--I’d call it a Bahamian national treasure--is conch salad. Conch salad contains fewer than 10 ingredients and the same ingredients are used at each of the 20 or so stalls at Arawak Cay. But not all conch salads are equal, not by a long shot. One of the best comes from Henry MacIntosh.

A dapper man with wrap-around sunglasses, MacIntosh set up shop here six years ago when Arawak Cay was little more than a weed-choked vacant lot. Today, his tidy stall serves up to 300 people a day.

Order the conch salad and MacIntosh or one of his assistants will walk down the embankment behind his stall and haul a bundle of conch out of the water.

Like all the vendors at Arawak Cay, MacIntosh keeps his conch alive in the water until the moment he’s ready to serve them. A few taps with a rock hammer and a cut with an old butter knife frees the sweet white meat from the shell. MacIntosh trims off the inedible portions and deftly crosshatches the meat with a knife the size of a scimitar to tenderize it. The flashing knife reduces the meat to bite-size pieces.

The next step is to finely dice onion, celery, green bell pepper, tomato and the fiery local chile, goat pepper (a cousin of scotch bonnet). MacIntosh performs this task with a dexterity that borders on sleight of hand. He mixes these ingredients right on the cutting board, then dumps the salad in a plastic bowl. The final step is squeezing juicy limes and oranges over the conch, and the salad is ready to eat.

The entire preparation takes five to 10 minutes, including hauling the conch out of the water. The resulting salad offers an exquisite contrast of flavors and textures: The chewiness of the conch, the crunch of the onion, the wetness of the tomato, the tartness of the lime juice, the sweetness of the orange juice, the heat of the chile.

For me, it’s more than a salad; it’s the very soul of the Bahamas. Best of all, you get to enjoy it in about the same time and for not much more money than a fast-food hamburger.

Arawak Cay is on the road to Cable Beach, about an $8 cab ride from downtown. Henry MacIntosh’s stall is the second stall on the left as you enter.

If you’re nervous about eating street food in the Caribbean, take comfort in the knowledge that the conch stalls operate under the highest hygienic standards. If one customer gets sick, the government closes down all 20 stalls, so the vendors police not only themselves but their neighbors.

You can’t get fresh conch in this country, but frozen conch is available at many fish markets and at Hispanic and West Indian markets. Salad made with frozen conch won’t be quite as good as the Arawak Cay version, but it still makes an intriguing addition to dinner.

ARAWAK CAY CONCH SALAD

If you can’t find conch, use cooked shrimp or very fresh raw scallops. If you want a hotter salad, leave seeds in chile. Serve the salad in wine or martini glasses for a fancier touch.

6 to 8 ounces conch meat

1/2 onion

1 stalk celery

1/2 green bell pepper

1/2 tomato (not too ripe)

1/2 scotch bonnet chile or other hot pepper, seeded

1/2 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste

3 to 4 tablespoons lime juice

3 to 4 tablespoons orange juice

Lightly score conch by making a series of shallow parallel cuts first in 1 direction, then at 90-degree angle to form crosshatch pattern. Cut conch into 1/4-inch dice.

Cut onion, celery, bell pepper and tomato into 1/4-inch dice. Mince chile.

Combine conch, onion, celery, bell pepper, tomato, chile and salt to taste. Transfer to 2 individual serving bowls. Squeeze lime juice and orange juice over salads and serve at once.

Makes 2 appetizer servings: Each serving made with shrimp:

123 calories; 802 mg sodium; 166 mg cholesterol; 1 gram fat; 10 grams carbohydrates; 19 grams protein; 0.59 gram fiber.