Emancipation Cookout

Heather Little-White, PhD, Contributor

Emancipation means freedom, so on Emancipation Day, Wednesday, August 1, you can free yourselves from the kitchen and retreat to a cookout into your cool backyard, or even in your neighbour's. After all, it is a day for celebrating, so have a potluck cookout with each person being responsible for preparing one item on the menu.

The menu will be typically Jamaican, reminiscent of ole time Jamaica and the foods served on Emancipation Day in 1834 and subsequent celebrations of Augus' Mawning. In the context of reflecting on their ancestors and their fight for freedom from slavery, Jamaicans should use the day to celebrate their rich culinary heritage with an exotic fare of Jamaican foods. The confluence of the first inhabitants, the Tainos and the East Indian, Chinese, Spanish and British influences resulted in a harmonious fusion of ethic dishes to a culinary array of dishes that is truly Jamaican.

On Emancipation Day, your menu could feature foods that truly represent Jamaica.

Breakfast

❑ Ackee & salt fish

Jamaica's national dish made with ackee, probably only in Jamaica and imported codfish to give a delectable blend

❑ Corned pork, Jamaican style

❑ Mackerel run dung

Flaked mackerel simmered (run dung) in freshly grated coconut milk and seasoned with fresh herbs and spices to a fairly thick consistency.

❑ Boiled green bananas

❑ Fried ripe plantains (Spanish influence)

❑ Corn dumplings/johnny cakes

❑ Hot chocolate

Lunch

❑ Pepperpot soup

Originating with the Arawak Indians with a base of Indian kale, now replaced by callaloo to make a hearty soup with corned beef or pork and ground provisions.

❑ Boston-style jerked chicken and festival.

Jerk is the legacy of the Tainos where well-marinated meats were slowly roasted on the spit lined with pimento wood, perfected in Boston, Portland. Festival, a sweetened, cornmeal fried dumpling originated in Hellshire Beach, St Catherine.

❑ Roast suckling pig

The pig is slaughtered between two-six weeks old, still suckling, hence the name, and roasted whole for celebrations. This is usually the centrepiece of the culinary spread.

❑ Fried fish and bammy

A Spanish tradition of preparing meals as in fish with a spicy escoveitch, twinned with bammy, a staple of the Tainos.

❑ Curried goat

The spices of the indentured Indians placed a signature on Jamaican curry dish with authentic spices from India. The Indians ate goat meat which was shunned by their masters.

❑ Roasted yam

❑ Roasted breadfruit

❑ Rice & peas

This has become a staple of most Jamaican households as a complete meal and can be made with any peas.

❑ Sweet potato pudding

Grated sweet potatoes, combined with grated coconut milk, cornmeal, raisins and spices and baked to perfection

❑ Tie-a-leaf/duckunu/blue draws

Deeply entrenched in the Africans tradition made from green bananas, green plantain, cassava or cornmeal and wrapped in banana leaves and tied with the bark of the banana.

❑ Ginger beer

The superiority quality of Jamaican ginger makes fermented ginger beer a great accompaniment for the Jamaican fare.

A number of protein ingredients are salted as that was the method of preserving meats for the trans-atlantic journey. To know your Jamaican foods and be able to cook them authenticate your Jamaican-ness. Start with a backyard cookout, hone your craft and before you know it, you could be cooking abroad! Happy Emancipation Day!