A case for rice and peas and chicken
Published:Monday | October 20, 2025 | 12:08 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
As we celebrate our heritage, it may be time to go to the cultural table to rethink some of the symbols that represent who we are today. For some years, I have been wondering if there has been a shift from some of the national symbols to other cultural items.
Are we valuing other things from what our forefathers thought were important?
Look at ackee and salt fish, isn’t ackee rationed sometimes? Shouldn’t our national dish be changed to rice and peas and chicken? Fried chicken, jerk chicken, brown stew, curry – chicken foot, chicken neck, gizzard, especially fried chicken. Chicken is Jamaican! I love ackee and salt fish. It adds to a great Jamaican cuisine. It is a ‘salt-ting’ that you prefer with dumpling, yam, roasted breadfruit or whatever. But the National Dish, when many homes do not ordinarily prepare and eat it? If ackee and salt fish is prepared, one can barely get a ‘tups’. Is that what we want of a national dish, or should it be more widespread?
When we visit a corner shop, a restaurant, a school canteen, a Jamaican home, what meal can we find? The popularity of rice and peas and chicken – a household name – begs for a national discourse on what our dish should be. The Ministry of Culture should take a serious look at this and begin the revision process.
If we should even assess the national fruit, ackee would really fall behind. I am really not feeling it as our fruit. What about mango (East Indian, Julie or Milly)? For it is way more valued, abundant, lasting and ready to eat as a fruit. Yes, possibly there is historical significance that landed ackee as being important for identifying our fruit and food, but now, what is our reality when we go into our kitchen and on our trees?
We appreciate the significance of ackee and salt fish as our national dish, and ackee as the national fruit, but one needs to assess their relevance as national symbols when our daily way of life says otherwise.
My case is hinged on relevance. Whatever we attach certain significance to must be relevant to our current reality, and, if it used to be relevant and that has changed, then we must be willing to adapt.
MARIE HENRY
Clarendon