Conch Fritters Taste Like Childhood

Memory lane looks a lot like a Turks and Caicos beach

By Mollie Chen
This past weekend, in the Turks and Caicos, I was thrown into Proustian fits of nostalgia by a deep-fried ball of seafood, flour, and spices. For me, conch fritters will always mean Miami - or, more specifically, a single restaurant in Miami.

When my family first started going to Scotty's Landing it was just a scruffy little outdoor spot near the Grove Key Marina on Biscayne Bay. The most coveted seats were at the rickety picnic tables off to the side of the main dining area, itself simply a wooden platform with white plastic tables and chairs. The Chart House was right next door so while the adults were drinking beer and catching up, us kids would dash up the slope to the windowed dining room, make faces at the fancily dressed folks eating lobster, and then tumble down the hill. The only things I think were ever ordered were cheese fries (to this day, everytime she goes to Miami my sister goes directly from the airport to Scotty's for a double order of these), chicken fingers, fish n' chips, and conch fritters. As kids, we loved that we were allowed to order 20-ounce sodas and Snickers ice cream bars for dessert; later as teenage sailing camp counselors, we'd motor over to gas up our dinky skiffs and get snacks while we waited. Now Scotty's has put in a real deck with fancy striped umbrellas over the plastic tables and I hear the picnic tables look suspiciously like those in a Crate and Barrel catalogue. They're supposed to have a great blackened dolphin sandwich but ordering that would feel somewhat unfaithful to the Scotty's of my childhood.

The secret behind Scotty's lovability was that you knew what you were getting: great setting, straight-out-of-the-fryer food, and a blasé, shit happens attitude. Same goes for most of the Turks and Caicos' eateries. And, more importantly, Scotty's was where I first came across conch fritters.

Conch fritters, I've learned, don't make it much further north than mid-Florida. There are very few foods that you can't find in Manhattan's relentless restaurant scene - from poutine to fugu - but I have yet to run across conch fritters. (And yes, if you know of anywhere I can find great conch fritters, for the love of god let me know.)

In the Turks and Caicos, on the other hand, there is nothing but conch: cracked conch (strips and chunks of "bruised" conch fried in a light, cornmeal-meets-tempura batter); conch salad (ceviche-style in a citrusy, spicy marinade - more chewy and tongue-tingling than anything else); and conch chowder (red and white varieties). Not to mention some of the more misguided preparations like conch pizza and conch quesadillas. Purists opt for conch fingers, which are pieces of conch that have been lightly fried and are usually served with tartar sauce. I tried them. Very tasty. However, I was drawn to conch fritters everywhere we went.

Like many simple foods, conch fritters are easy to mess up. Conch, green pepper, celery, and onion are folded into a light batter of flour, milk, cayenne, and garlic. Scoops of batter are fried to a dark golden color, so that the outside is crisp and crunchy but the outside is barely cooked through - doughiness and a flabby exterior are the marks of bad fritters. Even worse is when your fritters lack sufficient conch. On the side, there should be a deliciously trashy pale pink concoction made from ketchup, lime juice, mayonnaise, and hot sauce.

On our first day in Providenciales, we made a brief stop at the Somerset on Grace Bay to drop our bags and then hopped right back in a cab to head to Blue Hills, a well-worn residential far from resort-littered Grace Bay. Da Conch Shack has two shacks, to be exact, plus a few white-washed picnic tables out front. It hasn't been a secret for a very long time now - it's a stop on the Gecko Shuttle Bus - but it remains a no-frills, everyone's invited kind of place. On Grace Bay's main drag, the Barefoot Café was hopping, even at 10:30 in the morning. I appreciate a place that will serve you fried seafood before 11, and where you can see sun-leathered sea dogs chug Bloody Marys at the bar while a princess in Dior sunglasses and an American Apparel onesie picks at a fruit plate with her swarmy boyfriend. There, the conch fritters were hot to the touch and a satisfying, if greasy, brunch. Tiki Hut, in Turtle Cove Marina, was the Caribbean equivalent of Scotty's, right down to the friendly staff that all looked as if they were working to bide the time between breakfast and cocktail hour. There, we had a great view of the sport fishing boats coming in and out and a cool breeze off the water.

Our last night, we had dinner at Coco Bistro, a picture-perfect spot set in a coconut grove. The setting would be a tad precious - a canopy of tropical trees gently waving overhead, twinkling lights, soft reggae in the background - if it weren't so utterly idyllic. Whether from candlelight or wine, I felt glowy and euphoric in that happy setting; for once, the food - seared sea scallops, grilled lobster, and banana fritters - was just gravy.