West Indian, African, Jamaican, Caribbean markets

Rosemarie and Naraine Moonasar from Guyana own the Caribbean Market at 7505 New Hampshire Ave, Langley Park, 301 439 5288, filled with fruit and vegetables like goldenapple, breadfruit, callaloo, dasheen, plaintains and yams, the spices for jerked chicken, numerous hot sauces, fresh meat, frozen stuffed Grenada crab, and Jamaican and Guyanan patties.

A Saturday morning trip to Red Apple Market, 7645 New Hampshire Ave, Langley Park, 301 434 1810, is fun. An outlet for Amish farm produce, sold by the Amish themselves, it is also the largest West Indian market. Freshly flown in supplies of callaloo, breadfruit, different yams, cho-cho, calabaza and herbs jostle for space. with  fresh and pickled pigs' tails and feet, cow's cod and feet, salted, pickled and dried fish. Here's where to find Inca Cola and other unusual sodas, and spicy ginger beer.

A few doors down from Marchone's, 11224 Triangle Lane, Wheaton, is a little West Indian market selling salted cod, goat, oxtail, tripe, cow's foot, fufu flour and Caribbean spices and beers. Triangle Lane is a good spot for a variety of different ethnic markets.

The Negril Bakery, 965 Thayer Ave, Silver Spring, 301 585 3000 is a small Jamaican take-out with a few tables that acts as a good introduction to Jamaican food. From jerked chicken and goat to spicy Jamaican patties and rich fruit cake, almost all the island's specialties are there.

Eko Food Store, 6507 Annapolis Rd, Landover Hills, 301 341 5050, sells all you need, from cows' feet, pigs' trotters, oxtail, goat and stewing chickens to kola nuts and Ghanaian sweet Tea Bread. In the cooked food section are pepper soups, patties, jollof rice and stewed meat dishes. Crates of fresh coconut, plantain, okra, yams and other roots and tubers vie with open barrels of pulses, lentils and grains.

Or go to Casa Lebrato, 1733 Columbia Rd NW, 202 234 0099. There you will also find fresh plaintains or frozen tostones, and a number of West Indian supplies.

The 76 year-old Capital City market that runs in a square from Morse St NE, to 6th St NE and Florida Ave NE to Penn St NE is open for retail as well as wholesale bargains: Caribbean Crescent, 1280 Fifth St, 202 547 3101, sells Halal meats, and spices. King Jimmy International Meat Market, 411 Morse St, 202 543 1190, sells goat, as well as the usual meats butchered to order. Obeng International Food, 300 Morse St, #Q, 202 544 8255, sells West African, produce and specialties, meats, dried fish and dried goods.

Popular in West Africa are fresh kola nuts. They have no flavor, but their appeal is that, having completely puckered up your mouth, they leave it feeling as if a sharp wind had blown through it.

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