What the Heck? Wednesday: Potcakes

potcake

The mixed breed family dogs of the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands are called "potcakes". Families in the Islands are large, often with several generations living together. In poorer times, every meal was accompanied by a big pot of rice as a filler for the meal. The burnt rice 'cake' at the bottom of the pot when it was empty was usually thrown out in the yard for the dogs. Hence the dogs took on the name of their diet.
"Potcake" is sometimes used as an informal (and not too nasty) insult when talking among friends.

Dese potcakes howling all nite in da yard are gonna drive me crazy.

As you can see from the definition above potcakes are stray dogs.  However that definition doesn’t really do justice to the unique “breed” that potcakes are. 

Several families we know here have potcakes, or “Royal Bahamian Potcakes” as they are sometimes called, and they are very distinctive.  Their looks are widely varied, and their behavior is truly original.

Lenny Kravitz was recently on the cover of Delta’s Sky magazine with his potcake.

Then there is this guy.  He is also a Bahamian original.  According to that article, he is a “hubcap vendor” that works on Shirley Street in Nassau.

I can’t quite describe him, but “hubcap vendor never crossed my mind!  Let the pictures do the talking!

He even has his own Facebook page, called “Potcake says”

Street philosopher seems a better description to me. 

It’s always interesting to see what sign he has on his cart every time we pass by.

That is just the beginning of Potcakes, but the funniest potcake story I have comes from the backseat of the minivan.

We’re driving down the street and Jackson and Miller are jabbering away when  Miller says, “Stop it you potcake!”  to which Jackson says, “I’m not a potcake, you’re a potcake!”.  At that point it disintegrated into, “You’re a potcake!” “No, you’re a potcake!”