A Caribbean dish made from leafy greens, often spinach or similar vegetables, cooked with coconut milk and sometimes meat or fish.
From West African origins, likely from languages of enslaved people brought to the Caribbean. The word appears in various Caribbean Creole languages with similar spellings and meanings, reflecting the culinary heritage of African diaspora communities.
Calalu is a living example of culinary resilience—enslaved Africans combined the foods available to them in the Caribbean with their cooking traditions to create dishes that became central to Caribbean identity, and the word traveled through oral tradition for centuries.
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