On Jamaican food*

By far, one of the best things about learning about a new culture is getting to try all the new foods. Jamaica has no shortage of unique foods, and trust me, I’ve done my fair share of sampling in the past 6 weeks. So I thought it would be fun to give you all an idea of what I’ve been eating lately.

Jerk – Probably the most famous Jamaican dish and it’s usually chicken or pork (though the pork probably isn’t the best idea right now…). To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed by this one. Not because it’s not delicious, because trust me, it is. It’s just not that different then other slow cooked, smoked chicken I’ve had. But, like I said, it is tasty. The spice level really varies with the cook – sometimes it’s not hot at all, and other times it is smokin’ hot. What makes it jerk is the spices, and that’s where the variation comes in. Serious jerk chefs usually make their own blend and use that to season the meat. After the meat is spiced, it is slow cooked in a grill and becomes really tender. It’s usually served with festival – little sweet breadsticks that go really well with the chicken, especially if it’s a little spicy. The most interesting thing about jerk is where you usually find it. Besides the “jerk centers” around towns, there are usually a few people in each neighborhood who cook jerk chicken and pork on weekend nights at the end of their driveway. In Hellshire, this became a community event, with people eating and chatting with their neighbors. It’s not as much of an event in my community here, although I did meet Colin this past weekend, who sold me some delicious jerk chicken and festival – a huge portion that I had trouble finishing for only J$290! (That would be just over US$3.00)

Ackee and Salt-fish – This would be the national dish of Jamaica. (Yeah, I didn’t know countries had national dishes either. I guess America’s would be a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a coke?) Ackee is a red fruit that grows all over the place in Jamaica – on the tree it looks a little like a red pepper. It is poisonous until it opens on its own on the tree, when the middle can be taken out and cooked. It looks a lot like scrambled eggs when it is all cooked up, but doesn’t really taste at all like eggs. I’m not actually sure what it tastes like… the salt fish I had it with was so amazingly salty and fishy that I really couldn’t taste anything else. I think salt fish is cod, although I’m not really sure. Like I said, it is really, really salty. So much so that it actually doesn’t have to be refrigerated or kept cold. The whole dish just tastes salty and fishy and is obviously not my favorite. Apparently salt fish grows on you, but in order for that to happen, I’ll have to eat it a few more times…something that I don’t really see happening.  But when I try the ackee sans salt fish, I’ll let you know what I think.

Rice & Peas – can accompany pretty much any Jamaican dish, and I’ve already found myself craving it lately. The rice is usually prepared with a little coconut milk, giving it a slightly sweet taste. And mixed in are beans (beans are known as peas here) – usually red kidney beans, but sometimes a few other varieties. Like I said, this is a side with almost every meal, and the portion of rice is usually about the size of my head. I have no idea how Jamaicans eat so much rice and aren’t all 300 lbs., but they can seriously put it away. It’s impressive.

Stewed chicken – I think this is my favorite dish so far. The chicken is stewed in a pot for a while with just a slightly sweet sauce and its own juices – no oil or anything needed. As a result, the flavor of the sauce really comes out, but doesn’t overpower the flavor of the chicken. I feel like when people in America cook with sauces, we tend to just throw the sauce on there and that is kind of all you can taste. But when you can actually taste the meat, it’s just delicious. Jamaicans eat any part of the chicken, and the breast is actually most people’s least favorite part. People think I’m a little weird when I ask for it, but I can deal with that. It is usually served with a heaping side of rice & peas and/or what Jamaicans call food…

Food – a general term for starchy vegetables served as sides. This usually consist of yam (there are over a dozen different kinds of yams here…), potatoes (sweet, Irish, etc), and boiled green bananas. That’s right – unripened bananas are boiled and eaten here. They are surprisingly tasteless and turn an unappetizing grey color when cooked. They’re not exactly my favorite. There are also dumplings – little pods of water and flour that are not near as tasty as what I know of as dumplings. All of these items are usually placed in one pot and boiled, usually with no spices or anything added. For a culture that puts so much flavor into their meat, it’s shocking that they wouldn’t think to add even a little salt to this mix. It would definitely go a long way. But alas, no culture is perfect, right? And yes, food is used both in context, as well as in the way we would use the word. And yes, this does get really confusing. I never thought I would hear someone ask, “You want some food with your chicken?” 

As a side note, Usain Bolt, the current fastest man in the world, is from the parish bordering mine, Trelawney. That parish is actually also home to several other of Jamaica’s best sprinters. Trelawney is also where most of the yam in Jamaica is grown, and it’s said that all the yam is what makes them so fast. Personally, I’d say it’s the combination of luck and hard work, but you know, that’s just me. 

Patties – These are similar to a calzone or an empanada. It’s pretty much just ground up meat in a fried dough. The most common type is beef, although you can also get chicken, fish, veggie, and beef & cheese. They are surprisingly good, and pretty cheap. They are awful for you, and I’m pretty sure the meat would be somewhere around grade D in the states, but it’s best not to think about this when you’re eating them. They make a really good fast, cheap lunch and like most things that will give you a heart attack, are pretty tasty.

Bun & Cheese – definitely the most processed meal on this list. Thankfully, it’s usually only eaten around Easter – it’s definitely one of those things you can only eat a few times a year. The bun in this combo is a spiced muffin type of thing that’s sweet and a little sticky. It’s cut in half and served sandwich style with Tastee Cheese inside. The best way to describe Tastee Cheese is to think of a solid version of cheez-whiz – the “cheese” that comes in a can like whipped cream. The cheese comes in a can and doesn’t need to be refrigerated until it’s opened. I was a little hesitant of the combination at first, but it’s actually surprisingly delicious. But, like I said, something you really only want once or twice a year. I think eating it any more often than that would kill you.  

There are a few Jamaican delicacies I have yet to try including oxtail, pig tail, chicken foot (usually cooked in a soup), conch, fish head and manish water (goat head soup...). 

Gah. Two pages in and I haven’t even touched on all the fruit yet! Well, that’ll have to be another entry on another day. I could keep talking for days about food, but I think I’ll spare you all. 

*this entry is dedicated to Lindsay Giesen, mostly because she’s probably already trying to figure out how to make all of these things back in DC.  

23 days to go...

I only have 23 days until I am sworn in and officially start my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)! Some days it feels as though I’ve only been here a few days, and others it feels like I’ve been here a year already. Things are still going really well, but the days can be pretty jam packed, and I have been taking in a whole lot of information lately. Training is definitely exhausting – that’s something that other PCVs have told me before, and while I didn’t doubt in the least, I also didn’t fully understand how true it is until now. But it is all important stuff, so I'm willing to push through it.

I spent the last two weeks in Ochi with WHROMP (pronounced wee-romp), and am now back in Hellshire for this week with the rest of the group to process the experience and get some more training as a larger group. By far the best thing about this week is seeing the rest of my training class. I really like my group, and it’s really nice to hear about everyone’s site and what everyone will be doing while they’re here. In general, people seem really happy with everything. Everyone has their own unique challenges, and no one’s site is anywhere close to perfect, myself included. But people seem to be adjusting well, and I think once we get through training, start doing some work and get a little more freedom, people will be a lot happier.

We’ll all be going back to our sites this weekend, and will be there for another two weeks. Then we’ll have one final week of training in Kingston, complete with an official swearing in ceremony.
After that, it’s back to our sites to start our two year journey as Peace Corps Volunteers.

I don't really have too much else to say now, and need to get going anyway. But some people have been asking me what types of things I would appreciate being sent to me, and so I’ve decided to put together a little list, should you feel so inclined. No pressure, but who doesn't love a care package??

- Letters!
- Books (fiction, non-fiction, political, I'll really read anything at this point)
- Movies or music
- Magazines (Food magazines or current events/political ones are personal favorites)
- Food (non-perishable or non-melty stuff is probably best.)
- Yoga DVDs (A fellow trainee taught us some this morning and I really liked it!)
- Things to do in my room/house that don’t involve going outside after dark
- Really, anything else you can think of!

A new home, A new job

Expectations are a funny thing. As much as I tried to come into this experience with none at all, a few had slipped in – some that I was conscious of and others that I was not. When I decided to join Peace Corps, and even when I got invited to serve in Jamaica, I was preparing myself for any situation – living with no running water or power, being the only American for a hundred miles, working in a school, working in an office, not having access to internet, eating food I was entirely unfamiliar with, etc. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, so I had no idea what to expect. As it turns out, my situation is not at all what I had prepared myself for – not at all what I expected.

I’m living and working in a small city on the north coast of the island called Ocho Rios (Ochi for short). My house here is really nice – running water, electricity, a washing machine and very close to a supermarket that sells Ben & Jerry’s, good wheat bread, cheerios, peanut butter and a selection of beer that includes more than just Red Stripe and Heineken (and yes, that is about all it takes to make me happy). There are about 4 produce stands between my house and office and I’ve already gotten the low down on who has the best prices. Within the next few weeks, I will have hot water and internet at my house on top of all the other amenities. I’m living with a married couple – a Jamaican man and a Canadian woman who has been here for about 20 years. They are both really nice, and the woman has been giving me all sorts of tips and tricks for living in Jamaica (especially as a white woman) and in Ochi. And she cooked me a great Jamaican meal my first night – curry chicken, rice and beans, and stewed beef.

I’m working with an organization called the White River Watershed and Ocho Rios Marine Park Association (WHROMP). The White River runs for 15 miles from the mountains into the ocean, and dumps right into the Ocho Rios Marine Park. Activities in the White River’s watershed range from agriculture to tourism to mining to fishing and much more. WHROMP is working all over the watershed in 9 different “clusters” of communities over 25,000 acres to promote responsible use of the watershed. The watershed supports countless communities all over Jamaica, either directly or indirectly. And as I said, the river dumps directly into the marine park, with its beaches and coral reefs. So any negative effect on the watershed will have the same effect in the coastal communities and in the ocean.

From what I have gathered from Alex, my supervisor at WHROMP, the organization (or disorganization as he calls it) is still in the very early stages and needs a lot of work on the organizational/management side of things. And that’s where I come in. They have a lot of interest and a lot of motivated people, but need some focus and someone with an outsider’s view to come in and sort things out. So it’s a very exciting time in the organization, and a very important time as well. I was placed with WHROMP because of the watershed work that I did with the SCA a few summers ago in California, but I think that the work I did with GW Students for Fair Trade/United Students for Fair Trade (GWSFT/USFT) will be even more useful, and I’m excited to get to use and expand those skills. I’ll be working with a lot of different communities in a lot of different areas – anything from hotels here in Ochi to rural farmers in the hills. It’s going to be a lot of really hard work, and I can already see how frustrating it’s going to be at times, but I can’t even express how excited I am. The opportunity to help shape an organization from the beginning is more than I ever expected and something I feel confident I can make a difference with. It’s going to be a slow process, but I guess that’s why I have 2 years, right?

Alex took me around a small section of the river the other day, and it’s absolutely beautiful. The water is crystal clear with a sandy bed that looks almost like the sea. Just this one small section of the river supports so many different activities: fishing, agriculture, tourism, hydro-electric power, livestock, and more I’m sure I missed. Here’s a picture of the river under a bridge that was built by the Spaniards, probably in the early 1600’s – now it’s mainly a tourist attraction with companies offering tube rides starting from the bridge.

On a side note, Alex has a really interesting back story. He’s of British and Irish descent and has done everything from farming to metal work to environmental consulting, and often times it’s a mix of those 3 things and more. He has 4 children, 2 of whom I met and seem really nice as well. It’s funny, I actually look more like I could be his daughter then the two I met – his wife is Indian and they both look a lot like her. We already had one woman ask if I was Alex's wife or his daughter (yes, both of these from the same woman). For now, we’re going with the latter. But growing up as a white Jamaican, he’s had a lot of unique experiences relating to biases some black Jamaicans have against white Jamaicans. He’s already shared a lot of his story with me, and he’s had some really interesting and varied experiences that I’m excited to hear more about over the next 2 years.

So there are parts of my placement that were very unexpected. Namely living in an urban area, working and living so closely with other white people and being so close to other volunteers – there are at least 10 others within an hour of me. I guess I just have to adjust my expectations a bit and take everything for what it is, not what I thought it might be. I am very excited about everything, and can really see myself being happy in the whole situation for the next two years. I’m sure there will be challenges along the way and I’m sure there will be times I’ll want to throw my hands up and go home, but for now I’m really looking forward to this whole experience and can’t wait to see where it takes me.