Martin Henry LAST YEAR we attended the Grand Gala on Independence Day. As a youth, the Grand Gala was an annual ritual. But for years I hadn't been and my children had never gone. This year we decided to mark the nation's 41st with a family gathering replete with ole time Jamaican sinting.
Cruising through the mountains of the hinterland was really delightful. The land was green and beautiful. We now have to get used to the new symbolism of the green, black and gold of the flag. Much of the road has been recently repaired and with low traffic density on the back roads chosen away from the available highway it was a pleasant, leisurely run through spectacular country. Then we had to get down to business, the business of cooking. The first eating lined up for the day was fritters and run dung. Modern technology lent a big hand. My wife was determined not to grater coconut and had bought packets of coconut powder imported from the other side of the world. Her mother insisted on adding real Jamaican coconut from off her tree. Remember when Jamaica had a major coconut industry and coconut oil was a wholesome, flavour-filled staple? That was before the long trees that I climbed as a boy died off and the cholesterol scare was manufactured. The blender came in handy to shred up the fresh coconut fast and saved un-exercised arms from grater labour. To further speed up things in this age of fast food and little patience, the fritters-maker made them big, not little and neat. Big blobs of the mix were dropped in hot soya oil, not coconut oil. And soon we were eating our modern ole time food hot off the gas stove fire, and nice. Would have been nicer if wood smoke had wafted into the simmering run dung.
RADIO STATIONS
The radio stations were playing oldies transporting those who were there then back to a kinder, gentler, more melodic Jamaica. Stations are up from two at Independence and for most of Independence to some teens number now. We were bracing ourselves for the invasion of our space by the loud aggressive music which neighbours nowadays play for everybody else, especially on holidays. And our place of meeting is famous for that. Thankfully we were spared. And it was a quiet, peaceful, bellyful with food and laughter day. When Toots and the Maytals sang, "One pound ten fi di wedding cake and a bottle of cola wine" one child innocently asked, "The one pound is the flour? Dat woulda small fi a wedding cake."
TVJ (ole JBC) was showing Barbara Gloudon's pantomime "Miss Annie" and it then became as difficult to get youngsters of the TV and computer age to work on the preparation of ole time Jamaican food as it was to get Miss Annie's slaves, who had perfected the art of making haste slowly, to work without the whip. Miss Babs has explored the slavery/emancipation theme quite a bit in her dramatic works with great liberty of interpretation getting us to laugh while reflecting on the hardships that we've been through. Last year we went to see "Augus Mawnin".
There was of course, no TV at Independence. The Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation TV came along a year later in 1963 and remained the only station until 10 years or so ago. JBC TV was very consciously designed in Government policy, as outlined in the Five-Year Independence Plan, 1963-1968, to portray Jamaican culture, to reflect ourselves, and as a media instrument of development. It didn't quite turn out that way. Like in so much of the world, Jamaican one-station TV became an outpost of Hollywood. The ring games, story-telling (Amina Blackwood-Meeks was on as well on Independence Day) and talent concerts for community-level entertainment have been largely replaced by electronically delivered, pre-packaged material, mostly from foreign.
The next ole Jamaica food to follow the everlasting rice and peas was dukoonu. (I am not calling it blue drawers. I am not eating anything by that name!). There isn't yet a dukoonu mix, as far as I know. Mrs. H would have discovered it already! So the word is going out to some enterprising entrepreneur: Make a mix.
So we had to grater the sweet potato and the banana. We relied on blended coconut and the foreign powder for the coconut milk. The grating efforts of children, who have only dwelt in a world of easy foods and distracted by TV, were so feeble that Papa had to abandon reading the old Jamaica Gleaner and take over the grater if we hoped to have dukoonu before the next Independence Day.
COUNTRY KITCHENS
As our parents and grandparents did when we were little apprentices in country kitchens we just mixed to taste and didn't bother to measure anything. You dip a finger in and lick it off and if the mix taste good it ready. We showed our children how to quail the banana leaf over a real wood fire, how to wrap the mix in the supple pieces of quailed banana leaf and how to tie the wrap with banana string. Then into the pot of boiling water, blackened on wood fire, the wraps went. And we chatted "You remember when?" till the fritters and run dung wear out, the dukoonu boil, and we were ready again.
Ah tell them only a little rice and peas. Man eat that two, three times a week. The space is for dukoonu. Ah couldn't tell when last ah eat that. We had them hot, soft, nice and sweet with memories.
Martin Henry is a communication consultant.
