Hot fun under a hot sun was served up fresh at the 2025 St. John Celebration Food Fair. Those in search of a sip, a munch, or a meal lined up at an array of vendors’ tables to enjoy lunchtime on a Saturday afternoon.
It was made possible in part by the Department of Tourism Division of Festivals and a committee of volunteers, but most of all by the cooks, bakers, farmers, and producers of specialty food and drinks.
The Source would like to take this opportunity to introduce our readers to some of the folks who serve up V.I. culture and tradition at the end of a fork, starting with the 2025 Food Fair Honoree, Barbara Hendricks.
Hendricks, the daughter of Austin and Helen Hendricks and twin sister to retired police officer Bernard Hendricks, is a retired social worker. She said she learned how to bake from her mother and grandmother. She took her talents for turning out tarts and treats to another level starting in 2013. Three years later, she became a fixture at St. John food fairs.
After accepting her plaque and flowers as this year’s honoree, Hendricks thanked “friends, my family, my supporters, my customers — most of all — for being there, being supportive, and, you know, just being good.”
She also offered special thanks to her daughter, Atara, who encouraged her to start a small business. One of her best-known products is a tray of two-bite mini tarts in assorted flavors. She also offers native fruit preserves, banana bread, potato pudding, and all occasion cakes.
Jane Johannes is a legend in St. John Festival history. One of the founders of the fete from the mid-1950s, Johannes, said her cooking skills began in school. “That’s just after World War Two,” she said, and her pots have been steaming ever since.
Fried fish, fried chicken, and red pea soup with pigtail were her initial offerings in Festival’s early days. Then came kallaloo and the popular seafood kallaloo.
“I cook my food every day before I come here — everything fresh,” Johannes said.
And along the way, a family enterprise formed around those Food Fair delights with children and grandchildren getting in the act.
“Everybody’s happy. Everybody has to do their share,” Johannes said.
Karen Samuel is a multi-talented cultural artist — fine arts painter, dress designer, quilt maker, and a former art teacher. Her cooking and baking skills came from her mother, Doris Samuel.
She is known for her tarts, saltfish cakes and pates, native drinks, and preserves.
“She was an excellent cook, and she was also a seamstress … I had an older sister, so she was my mother’s assistant. And so I observed, but I actually didn’t do anything until my mother was gone,” Samuel says. “I knew what it was supposed to taste like. And my sister had institutional cooking, so she was able to transfer the recipes that were for large quantities down to, for four to 10 people. And with that, I started trying to make some of the things that I liked that she had made for us most for children. And that’s kind of where we are right now.”
After a heaping helping of fish and johnny cake, or stewed mutton, or whatever tickles the palate, Jennifer Williams has something to help her customers wash it down — ginger beer, cucumber-ginger drink, peanut punch, or maybe a little passion fruit wine. After 15 years of serving Vienna cake by the slice, johnny cakes, tarts, and native drinks, Williams says she’s adopted a timetable to bring the best of the fresh to Food Fair customers.
“I start baking two days before I do the time? And then the day before I do the cake. But the drinks I can do like three days before or four days before I can do the drink, and I freeze them. So when I bring them, they’re frozen, you know, so when you get your drink, it’s cold and refreshing,” she said.
Williams credits her mom for passing on her baking skills and coworkers for encouraging her to make her treats available to a wider consumer base.
St. Croix Source
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