From Cayman Brac to NYC: Sarasue McField puts local cuisine on the map

Traditional methods of Caymanian cooking may be a fading art form, but Sarasue McField, Cayman Brac chef and owner of Sookie’s Kitchen, is on a mission to preserve the recipes that her grandmother and others like her hold dear.

“There’s so many different options out there with food,” McField told the Compass. ‘That’s the beauty of food and I just love how each country has their own specific flavours or ways of doing things. I feel like it’s my duty to keep certain things alive because a lot of it… for Cayman is fading out.”

McField, who operates out of her home kitchen, comes from a long line of Caymanian cooks hailing from both Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac.

Childhood love for cooking

She said her fondest childhood memories on the Brac were spent in the kitchen helping her grandmother, Sylvia Cynthia Scott aka Dill Dill, cook.

“She was always known for her seafood dishes and her love for fishing so I have a lot of fond memories coming home and seeing a big old pot of rundown on the stove and complaining because we only ate seafood. The only time we really had red meat would be like around Christmas time,” she said.

McField added that her mother, Susie Scott, is a very good cook who she credits for her passion for scotch bonnet pepper.

“She  taught me how to make the best rice and beans and how to season food, make a meal out of literally nothing, and was always quick to share food and feed anyone [in need]. She introduced me to scotch bonnet pepper and her influence is why I love it so much to this day,” she added.

Between her mother and grandmother, she said, growing up watching them cook all the time, “I just formed a love for it from a very young age”.

She recalled that her grandmother was a strict fish eater and, growing up on West End, Cayman Brac, she had many adventures going on the bay to pick up whelks or pounding conch and, of course, cooking turtle meat at her side.

McField added it was in her grandmother’s home that she had her first and only brush with barracuda poisoning.

“Mama would always ‘run me’ because I would pick at the fish as she was frying it. She kept warning me about she needs to test it, but I grew up eating [barra] and never got poisoned so I wasn’t worried. A couple hours later I didn’t know whether to sit down or stand up by that toilet,” she said.

The traditional way to test barracuda is to put a piece outside for a while and if becomes overrun with ants it would be considered safe to eat.

She said in the aftermath of eating the bad barra, her grandmother kept trying to get her and her sister to drink some bush tea she made to offer them some relief.

“But it had tasted [so] bad we refused. She drank hers and was up and about and fine after, while we were dying,” she said, jokingly.

Though the pain in her legs were horrible and took weeks to go away, McField declared, “That was the best fry barra I ever had.”

She said her grandmother, who now lives in a rest home, always knew the bush tea remedies to fix any ailment.

“She taught me a lot about bush medicine and benefits, which came in handy when the pandemic started,” she added.

McField said she holds on tightly to those traditions and it comes out in her cooking as well.

This, she said, is what drove her to open Sookie’s Kitchen.

“My tagline is ‘Caymanian comfort food’. I have so many fond memories of growing up and eating traditional Caymanian food and I remember my grandmother cooking the yam cake; she makes the best cake in the world, outside with ashes,” she said.

She said she always wanted to ensure that those recipes did not die, such as the traditional heavy cakes, which are different from cassava cakes, and the different foods that she was taught to cook growing up.

“As my grandmother got older and her memory fades a bit, I always felt like I had to remember these recipes. I want to stay true to the Caymanian roots, but I’ll add a twist to Cayman classics like the bread puddings or the heavy cakes,” she said.

McField added it was up to the younger generation to keep the culinary culture alive.

“I was very blessed to have a grandmother on my father’s side, on my mother’s side. My mother’s side is from Cayman Brac and my father’s side from East End (his mother Melrose Rankin was known for her cooking). Both of my grandmothers are known for their baking, especially of heavy cakes. Sadly, back then they didn’t measure or write down a lot of recipes,” she said.

She said she used to sit down and speak with them and try to get a feel for how things were done, with the recipes and certain things that they did back then.

“You can’t really Google a lot of the stuff that you see,” she added.

The most accurate recipes, she said, come from actually speaking to elderly Caymanians.

Taste of Brac in NY

McField’s bread pudding and heavy cakes are a must on Cayman Brac, but so too are her conch fritters and seafood dishes.

She recently participated in the Live Seafood festival at Public Beach for the first time, where she debuted her lobster breadfruit nachos and conch fritters, both of which were a hit.

“I’ve always gotten real, honest and positive feedback on my food. I wasn’t expecting the line to be [so long.] I was so overwhelmed with the support. I have no words. I was not expecting that kind of response and the feedback, everyone was so kind,” she said, adding that some people came back to her booth more than once that day.

She also recently participated in a special curtain-raiser event in New York for Taste of Cayman, hosted by the Department of Tourism and the Cayman Islands Tourism Association, where she prepared conch fritters.

“It was absolutely amazing! From shopping for ingredients in the Essex Market to braving the 50° weather walks, it was exhilarating and a great learning experience. It was great for me to share a dish that was true to our Caymanian culture,” she said.

McField added that speaking about the history of the traditional dish and the way Caymanian families passed on how to cook conch fritters, made it even more special.

“I was happy to have the freedom to speak freely, and with my Caymanian accent, and not scripted. And the feedback was very encouraging and positive,” she said.