Amazon Flavors, A culinary weekend to savor! - Food

For weeks, I'd been looking forward to what's going to happen during the Amazon Flavors and thinking that I'll have to read about the reactions in newspapers, newssites and on facebook. And thanks to my friend Jill-Joy Landburg, I got the opportunity to take part in the activities of the final day.

The day started at 6:00 am. Seriously, it's after a very long time that I woke up this early on a sunday. I felt like a junior on the morning of the schooltrip. So I arrived at 7:00 am sharp at Krasnapolsky. Only a handful of guests that were also waiting for the bus that'll bring us to Berg en Dal. And as promised we got our breakfast package in the bus. Probably because I really hoped to see a cup of coffee in my breakfast package, but I was pretty disappointed when I saw a white box handed to me.
The breakfast package was a pretty healthy one: 2 slices of  bread with cheese, a cupcake, a cooked egg, an apple and a juice.

We finally arrived in  1,5 hours at Berg en Dal. This is the schedule for the day:

In the Seafood Master Class, we had a guest speaker Mr. Waldring, the owner of Walvis. Although I'm not a fish lover, I had to admit that it was very interesting. Not only did he give us some advice on buying fish and the differences between a Bang Bang (Yellow Snapper) and the King fish, it was amazing how his assistant filet a fish of about 1 meter in less than 2 minutes. We even saw a shark jaw and a shark fin. Some of the pointers he gave were:

* the drier a fish, the more neutral a fish taste ( for people like me who doesn't like the fishy smell)
* if the fish is frozen, press with your finger in the fish and if it jumps back up, it's fresh.
* the King fish doesn't get skinned.
As an extra, every visitor got a bruschetta with bangbang filet. It was a nice gesture, but after the snack, my mouth felt so sour and the onion in it was a bit too much.

And since it's all about culinary, a chef's demonstration can't be missed. Mr. Jeroen Robberegt  was part of the jury in the Amazon Iron Chef Challenge. If you'd like to read more about him and his masterpieces, please check this site: http://receptenvantopchefs.nl/introductie.php?chef=Jeroen Robberegt.
It's always something seeing professionals in their act. The way he prepared everything seemed as if it is so simple and easy to make.

 
 He made tuna sashimi, rolled in black curry and brocolli couscous with caviar. Just to have an idea how fresh he cooks. Even the kroepoek (cracker) was freshly made and the tuna was freshly rolled in the black curry. Wonder what black curry is? The chef made it mixing curcuma with coal. The flavor is very mild, not the aggressive curry we're used to in Suriname, with a smoky twist.

For me the curry, however mild, was still a bit too much. I hardly tasted any tuna flavor if I took a bite with the black curry. The brocolli couscous was supposed to be sweet and sour, which I couldn't taste in it.  The krupuk was very crispy, but mine was still a bit oily and a strong fish taste to it.

Next to that, there was a potato/cassave puree and crab.
The puree was very good. Super moist, so soft that it seemed to melt in my mouth. Not much was done to the crab though.

After this we took a break since the 12 o'clock wine tasting was only for chefs. I sat at the dining area and had a nice view on the river. It's so calming and looking at it, I can only sigh and admire its natural beauty.

Because I was part of a media group, I had to pay nearly SRD 100,- (nearly US$30,-) for lunch. I don't hope people get me wrong here. I do pay these amounts for food, but if I pay this much, I do expect food that's a bit special. And it doesn't need to be lamb chop or angus beef,  but I at least expected something more special than fried rice and fried noodle. Probably because for most guests the lunch is included, but for such a culinary weekend, my expectations were pretty high.