Culture of Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia holds every year two main traditional festivals, La Woz ("The Rose", on August 30) and La Magwit ("The Marguerite", on October 17), organized by the two rival historic cultural associations (societés) with the same names whose affiliates comprise most of the country's population.

On the Sunday of this week, the various towns chosen to host this festival put out the result of their grand preparations; local foods and drinks such as breadfruit, green fig, plantain, salt fish, king fish, manicou (opossum), roast pork, Johnny Cake (fried bake) and a famous dish, bouyon (fish, chicken or meat stewed with dasheen, yams, plantains, banana and dumplings), lime drinks, guava drinks and more.

Persons who do not want to wear the extreme layers of skirts and dresses make clothing out of the special plaid material.

Modern Saint Lucia today has produced artists/producers such as Mecca, Teddyson John, Ricky T, Claudia Edwards, Shemmy J just to name a few.

Typical essential foodstuffs are potatoes, onions, celery, thyme, coconut milk, the very hot scotch bonnet peppers, flour and cornmeal.

Meat and seafood are normally stewed and browned to create a rich gravy sometimes served over ground provisions or rice.

In recent years, roti, a flatbread of Indian origin, has become very popular, being imported from the twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago to the south.

In 1999, it was moved to mid-July so as not to clash with the much larger Trinidad and Tobago carnival, and in effort to attract more overseas visitors.