Sandwiches of Barbados: Cutters, Bread-And-Two

The cuisine of Barbados, like the cuisine of many other Caribbean countries, comes from a hodgepodge of influences . The eastern-most of the Caribbean islands, Barbados was home to Arawak people and then Kalinago Caribs before the arrival of Europeans to the Americas around the year 1500. The Spanish and Portuguese both occupied the island in the 16th Century without establishing permanent colonies there, though it was a Portuguese navigator who gave it the name Os Barbados meaning “the bearded ones,” supposedly after the appearance of the native Bearded Fig Trees. In 1625 though the island was claimed in the name of James I of England and became a major English (and later British) colony in the Western Hemisphere.

Sugar was the colony’s major export, and a plantation system–owned by rich white people from England and worked by mostly African, but also Irish and Scottish slaves–became its economic engine. As plantation ownership centralized and the slave trade increased, so did the disparity in demographics of the island. By 1833 when slavery was abolished in the British Empire, tbe African-descended population vastly outnumbered the Europeans, but the newly freed slaves were still forced to work the plantations for subsistence wages, along with indentured servants from India and deportees from other British holdings. Today, 95% of the population of Barbados self-identifies as black or mixed, with small communities of South Asian and East Asian immigrants and a larger white minority.

So as elsewhere in the Caribbean, Barbadian–usually shortened to Bajan–cuisine is a mix of flavors and techniques both indigenous and imported. Many dishes will appear familiar to those who’ve experienced the cuisine of other Caribbean islands–brown stew chicken, saltfish, curry, rice and peas, cou-cou. Seafood is, of course, a staple of the island–flying fish, kingfish, swordfish, red snapper. A sweet crumbly bread flavored with coconut, spices, and fruits is an island favorite. And their sandwiches, served in bread rolls that are called “Bajan salt bread” to differentiate them from that popular sweet fruited bread, are called Cutters.

History does not record the origin of the word “cutter” as the name of this sandwich. There is a well-known Barbadian restaurant called Cutters of Barbados but it is named after the sandwich rather than vice versa. However, I presume that this treat is so named because making one involves cutting the bread roll open and stuffing it with tasty things. Fried flying fish is the most popular ingredient to fill a cutter with, though other options include ham, cheddar cheese, fried eggs, chicken livers, even pulled pork. A cutter will almost certainly include a bit of Bajan hot pepper sauce, and possibly some salad ingredients such as lettuce, tomato, sliced cucumber. And despite Barbados being a member nation of the British Commonwealth, the bread in a cutter is *not* buttered–don’t let a Brit tell you otherwise.

Bajan Salt Bread

I have alternately heard Bajan salt bread described as crusty, soft, fluffy, and chewy. It can’t be all of the above, certainly. The recipe I used–modeled after the prevailing patterns I found in recipes online, with some added sourdough discard for flavor–resulted in crusty, golden brown rolls with some give to them, though sturdy enough to retain their shapes.

Ham Cutter

Some people count fish cutters as the most popular sandwiches in Barbados, but if you search social media–especially video-based socials, such as Tiktok, Youtube, and Instagram–nearly every video will be about ham cutters, or at least mention them. These ham cutters are stuffed with ham sliced by hand from a honey-glazed, fresh-roasted ham rather than machine-sliced deli cuts. In Barbados, as with much of the English-speaking world, a beautiful ham covered with pineapple rings and a sweet, tangy glaze is a holiday feast centerpiece, but Bajan cutter shops will roast many hams daily and absolutely overstuff salt bread rolls with the results.

Most descriptions of cutters that I’ve read name lettuce and tomato as optional, but standard ingredients. However, few of the photos or descriptions I’ve seen of ham cutters have included either. Bajan hot pepper sauce, though–that is required, even in a ham cutter. Barbados loves its hot pepper sauce, as do many of the countries of the Caribbean. There are a lot of Bajan hot sauce brands available, and many of them have a yellowish color that is intriguing. I bought the standard red bottle of Lotti’s Original Barbados Recipe Hot Pepper Sauce, though there was also a yellow version available, and while I don’t plan to try every Bajan hot sauce I can find, I like this enough that I definitely will seek out more, and even try the yellow versions when I find them. Lottie’s has a nice thick texture, a fruity, habanero-forward flavor with a pungent onion/garlic/vinegar base. It’s got more heat to it than, say, a standard Louisiana-style hot sauce but it’s nowhere near overwhelming, just a nice kick and some good flavor.

To make my ham cutter, I cut open the bread roll and added two good-sized folded-over slices from the big muscle of a butt-end ham. Double check my math if you want, but that is essentially four thick pieces of ham.

Then I gave the ham a good lashing of my Bajan hot pepper sauce.

That’s it; that’s the sandwich.

A salty-sweet glazed ham like this is a better match for a habanero hot sauce than my imagination had prepared me for. The fruitiness of the habanero slots right into the sweet pineapple-and-honey glaze, the mustard of the glaze complementeing the garlic and onion of the sauce. The natural pairings worked so well that it made me wonder, why had we never put hot sauce on the table at Christmas?

Cheese Cutter? Egg Cutter?

The cheese industry of Barbados is not extensive. Locally-produced cheeses tend to be boutique products intended for rich tourists rather than workaday sandwich fodder. The cheddar cheeses found in some cutter sandwiches are imported, from New Zealand or Australia, England or Ireland. This particular brand that I found at Aldi may not be something you’d see in Barbados, but the cheddar they serve there is likely very similar.

Cheese cutters may include just that–thick slices of cheddar cheese–or they may have lettuce and tomato added, cucumber, even mustard. However, according to the site Barbados Pocket Guide, “fried eggs are also a popular addition…” Here is my question: if you add a fried egg to a cheese sandwich, is it still a cheese sandwich? or is it now a fried egg sandwich with cheese?

This sandwich included 2 thick slices of Australian cheddar and 2 fried eggs, as well as the requisite layer of hot pepper sauce.

What is there not to like about the combination of fried eggs, cheddar cheese, and a good, tasty hot sauce? The sour vinegar base and chili pepper bite of a good hot sauce are almost as natural a combination with cheddar cheese as the sour and pungent flavor of a good mustard, while providing an almost infinitely better accompaniment for fried eggs. It’s possible that someone out there would like to argue and say that mustard is good on fried eggs–in fact I’m almost certain I know people who would make that claim. However, there are valid arguments to be made that fried eggs are in fact the ideal vehicle for hot sauce, a fatty and savory medium cut through with precision by the sour and spicy hot pepper sauce.

The heat of the fried eggs softened the cheddar without fully melting it, leaving it ideally textured to enjoy while still inside the sandwich–don’t get me wrong, I like a burst of molten cheese spilling out the sides of my sandwich as much as the next guy, but sometimes, just sometimes, I like to eat the cheese *with* the other ingredients. Normally I like a little bacon in my egg and cheese sandwich, but with this bread and this hot sauce, I’m willing to make an exception.

Fish Cake Cutter? No. Bread-and-Two.

Fish cakes are a popular breakfast dish in Barbados, fritters made with a batter of boiled salt cod, onion, herbs, flour, egg, milk, pepper and plenty of baking powder to make them rise nice and fluffy. Sometimes they are made with potatoes as well, hewing closer to the Portuguese Pastéis de bacalhau they are likely derived from.

They are sometimes served as is, to be eaten out of hand, dipped in a local version of British Marie Rose sauce flavored with sugar and hot pepper sauce. Sometimes, they are served by the pair in a salt bread roll, with cheese and mustard, or lettuce and tomato, or any of the standard accompaniments for a cutter sandwich.

These are not generally called cutters though. They are called bread-and-two.

For my fish cake cutter bread-and-two, I started with a simple Marie Rose sauce made with mayonnaise, ketchup, and Bajan hot pepper sauce.

I added two fish cakes, hot and fresh from the fryer.

Lettuce and tomato, I thought, were a good accompaniment for these fish cakes and the Marie Rose sauce, slices of one of the last Yellow Brandywine tomatoes my garden has produced this year, and some nice green leaf lettuce. I have still not come to terms with the slice of American cheese they add to the McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich, and draping these fishcakes in cheddar did not appeal to me. Perhaps one day I will see past this prejudice–if someone would like to fly me to Barbados and convince me, I’m willing to listen.

Salt cod, also known as bacalao or bacalhau, is the primary flavor of the fish cake, and the recipe I followed tried to boil the salt out of it rather than soak it out, so these fish cakes are rather intensely seasoned–not unbearably salty, but noticeably so. They are really tasty though, salty and savory and a little spicy from some hot pepper sauce mixed into the batter. They’re hot and crisp and light and taste of the ocean, briny; of onions, pungent and a little sweet; of parsley and thyme. They work well in a sandwich, especially when combined with these complementary condiments, the savory sweetness of the late-season tomatoes, the mildly bitter crunch of the green leaf lettuce, the creamy sweet heat of the habanero-spiked Marie Rose sauce.

I may have missed out by not tracking down a local source for flying fish and making that version of the cutter. But I am pleased with the versions I’ve made; the ham, surprisingly good with habanero hot sauce, and the egg and cheese, gooey and rich and satisfying. I am ecstatic with how well the bread-and-two worked, how many flavor and texture boxes it checked in a single simple sandwich. And if there’s a vital experience I missed by not frying a flying fish, not eating mustard on my cheese cutter or cheese on my fish cakes…

Well then I guess I’ll see you in Barbados and you can tell me all about it.