Coconuts are so abundant on the island that they are almost a nuisance. Francis Cupidon, owner of the Garden of Eden coconut oil factory, learnt how to make coconut oil without any machinery from his mother. The process was slow and painstaking, but the flavour high quality coconut oil gave to home cooking was inimitable. 

After many years first as a hotelier and then working in parliament, Francis hatched an idea to start a Seychellois coconut oil factory. He uses wild, fallen coconuts, paying local teenagers to gather and husk them for him. After processing the fruit into oil he turns the leftover pulp into a sweet and rich coconut jam. The factory, one long room, with the machinery at the back and shop at the front, is well worth a visit if you’re ever in Grand Anse. 

The Seychelles’ most famous coconuts are, however, not edible. Not because they’re poisonous – but because they’re protected. The famous coco de mer, the largest seed in the world, is quite a sight to behold. This mysterious fruit, pollinated by geckos and big enough to kill an elephant, is only endemic to two of the Seychelles’ many islands, Praslin and Curieuse. Another curious feature of this giant nut is that it’s not high in fat. In fact, when mature the flesh is so hard it’s known as ‘vegetable ivory’. 

However, the crown jewel of Seychellois cooking is, undeniably, its fish. Fresh fish can be found all over the island, caught in small fishing boats and then grilled over live fire or cooked into curries. Parrotfish, barracuda, job fish, red snapper, jackfish and so much more, the markets are overflowing with seafood of all kinds. You can see fish for sale by the side of the road, from the backs of boats and on the menus of every restaurant on the island.

Chef Wallace Elizabeth, sous chef at Carana Beach Hotel, set up a barbecue on the hotel’s beach to demonstrate the traditional Seychellois way of making grilled fish, or pwasson griye. Chef Wallace talked us through each step of the process, stuffing the fish with fresh parsley, tomatoes and aromatics then seasoning it with salt and cooking it over coals until tender. Once cooked, the fish was served with a local type of lemon, thin skinned and round like a lime, and a slightly sweet tomato sauce made with chillies, bell peppers and thyme. 

Meanwhile, at Le Domaine de Val de Près, they serve a very different type of grilled fish. At Le Domaine you can book a demonstration called grandma savoir-faire, where local home cooks show you historical cooking methods. Madame Gina Havelock stuffed the fish similarly to Chef Wallace, but fastened the fish to a rig made from freshly split bamboo, and cooked it over a roaring fire of coconut husks. It was finished with a sauce known simply as  Creole sauce, made from fried onions and tomatoes, a touch of soy sauce, sugar and thyme. It was, by quite some way, the best fish I’ve ever had.

While it’s easy to understand at a glance the charm of the Seychelles’ beaches and oceans, the same cannot be said of simple fish curries and bouyon bred. In an Instagram-dominated food world, flavour is less important than colour. The cooking of the Seychelles easily shows the foolishness of this, where almost everything is brown and absolutely everything is delicious.

To understand the attraction of bouyon bred, a fresh soup tart with bilimbi and filled with chunks of tender white fish, you have to taste it. The seemingly-simple coconut nougat, prepared for us by Claire Amade, was unapologetically monochrome and yet impossible to stop eating from the pan. Apart from the sugar, it was entirely made from ingredients that could be foraged from near Claire: bananas, coconut and nutmeg. This sort of cooking – simple, local and not flashy – is abundant in the Seychelles.

One woman working to celebrate local cuisine and Seychellois culture is Madame Micheline Georges. Madame Georges runs Le Jardin du Roi, which is part spice plantation, part botanical garden and part nature reserve. The gardens are full of spices – naturally – but also local medicinal plants. Gro bonm is used for coughs, lemongrass to deter mosquitos and so many more. The gardens have a total of 37 medicinal plants, 81 fruits and spices.

Five generations of Madam Georges’ family have lived on the land since 1855, when an ancestor of hers from London moved to the Seychelles and bought the land. Although he had been a school teacher in England, on the Seychelles he grew vanilla, cinnamon and cloves to export. We spoke to Madam Georges during our lunch, and she told us that everything in the meal had come from the gardens apart from the fish, which she had picked up that morning. Her family learnt to cook Seychellois dishes from their servants in the 19th century, and then passed down the recipes from mother to daughter.

‘They cook because I taught them’ she explained to us with a laugh, in response to a question about the chefs at the restaurant. ‘I made them cook my own way. I learnt from my parents, and I went to a hotel school. I love to cook, it’s been in my genes for a long time. We take time, you know, and we do it right. I tell them “What’s no good for me is no good for my people.”’

Many of the people working at Jardin du Roi are not Seychellois – Sri Lankans, Malagassis and more. Madam Georges takes the time to teach them her traditional recipes, how to dry cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg and tend to the gardens. The increasing numbers of non-Seychellois working in restaurants has caused tensions on the island, with fears that they will contribute to the loss of traditional recipes. But Madam Georges, practising what she preaches, clearly believes traditions should be taught to anyone who is willing to learn.

Many of those I spoke to on my trip expressed concerns about the future of Seychellois cookery and local traditions. In an economy dominated by tourists, their demands eclipse everything. Hotels serve some Seychellois dishes, but most are focussed on pasta and burgers, which are more popular with guests. Large hotels in particular, which tend to be foreign-owned, have few if any Creole options.

Parents sometimes exclusively talk to their children in English, or send them to English-language schools. This helps them get a head start in tourism, but at the cost of being able to communicate in Creole. The loss of language is in and of itself a problem, but it also makes it harder for grandparents to pass things down. 

Seychellois cooking is mostly an oral tradition – while there are occasional cookbooks and cooking shows, they are few and far between. People learn from watching their parents, ‘sitting on a sack of rice behind the door’, as my guide Vincent told me. Others live in multigenerational households, watching their grandparents cook meals for their children and children’s children well into old age. More interest from tourists could help preserve these traditions, providing an economic incentive to keep traditional methods of cooking alive.

The beaches and scenery of the Seychelles will, quite understandably, always be the main draw of tourists to the archipelago. But, once you’ve tried the food, it’s hard hard not to see it as a close second. So, if you have the opportunity to visit the Seychelles, step off the beach and out of your comfort zone – try the nougat, the red snapper or the bouyon bred. And, as they say in Mahé, once you’ve tried the breadfruit, you always come back.

All photography courtesy of Island Visuals Seychelles.