To my two children, Potatoes of Jamaican beef Give the answers to the questions they have not yet asked.
In our house in Raleigh, North Carolina, the lunch box is the nine with eight inches, lightly isolated terrain, where the children of Mi-Luke, 10 and Noelle gently teach themselves. As an author of the Trinidadian cooking book, married to a Jamaican physicist, we pack lunches that allow them to feel fed, fed and, when possible, associated with their inheritance in the Caribbean; An spread of foods that fill their belly, as their minds expand along with their understanding of the world – and their place in it. Prominent favorites allow predictability and preferences to live as equal: fresh fruits (roasted mango, oranges with leather quarters), an egg boiled with difficulty or a narrow log -in -wire register, something sweet (one pairs of rods filled with figs and animal-shaped throats, worms and rabbit, but never sharks).
However, the network tend to be more complicated. “Mummy, peanut butter and jelly. But only strawberry jelly, not grapes. And no peanut butter. And only on the Hawaii rolls. Ok? Ok! Noelle insists. Luke's requirements are more cheeky, bordering the absurd. “Will you put a Shake Shack Hamburger in my lunch box today?” He asks with the slight confidence of a child whom the words “Time” and “reality” are abstractions, at best.
However, there is a key that they neither change nor refuse: Jamaican calf potatoes. Whenever we visit one of our native countries, my husband and I tell our children “Trin-Ja-Merican” that when it comes to food, “eat what is before you; no changes or replacements.” And they Surprisingly match: drinking nut nut nut water, absorbing clumps of salt fish and coconut bread, and devouring their collective body weight in Dumplings chicken and festival. Their wild appetite for all the foods they would withdraw if they appear in another context is a parents' victory my husband and I enjoy.
Photo and styling of food by Liz Neily
But after all, there is only one food that children are looking for outside Jamaica, and this is beef patties. Deeply spicy meat pies have long been a road food and a quick random element on the island. Boiled beef – prominent with strong aromatic aromatic, including AllSpice, ginger and garlic – is locked in a flavored crust with bright, nuanced spices, including curry dust and turmeric. And, although there are some refrigerated riffs-aisle in Jamaican beef potatoes, the children-and my husband, also-also–also–the potatoes made of scratches, where the aroma of boiled meat and the soft comfort of a hand pie Breeze breeze calms, supports and fills us in more ways than one.
When making calf potatoes during the cold winter jaw – when the Caribbean feels acute distant – it's a corrective grace. I feel the little eyes of my children as I add fresh grassy skeletons and ground thyme to the boiling meat. But most importantly, children ask questions about the recipe and inadvertently their legacy, too. “What makes the dough so yellow?” Noelle asks. I tell her about Turmeric, how the living spice gold is a component of the anchor in South Asia, loved by its terrestrial aroma and healing properties. I also add that turmeric was brought to the islands when the India -indented servants worked in the Caribbean sugar plants after slavery. “I didn't know this,” says Luke, in an octave significantly quieter than his usual voice. His furious eyes rely on mine, and I keep his gaze long enough to raise this moment in his memory forever.
Photo and styling of food by Liz Neily
I roll the golden yellow dough and once again the kids are heavy. “I love that only a little turmeric makes the dough the color of the sun.” A tangible lesson in the nuance of quantity that I did not learn directly. The visible aroma of all spices causes their memory as a reflex. “Wind like Jamaica, mummy,” notes Luke.
Both continue to look at me intentionally by playing the meat mixture in the dough. I don't know exactly what they are thinking, but after their smiles and slightly shocked eyebrows, I see the shape of their thoughts trace new discoveries of a dark past, a resilient people and their origin. A silent beat passes between us. It is a hurry that we all interpret differently. I want to tell them more about how the Caribbean foods embody stories of faith, family, slavery and survival, but I stick.
“I can't wait to take these to school tomorrow,” Luke says. To which Noelle agrees, “I will tell my friends, is Jamaica, so it's part of me.” There it is, the answer to the question I didn't ask, but the beef potatoes surrendered.
Cover the photo and styling food from Liz Neily.
