Made in Grenada
Mom and Grandma
So I grew up in the Caribbean and the dishes of my childhood were mainly cooked by my mother and grandmother. My mother raised us semi vegetarian. The closest I got to meat with mom was chicken and fish. But my grandmother didn't care. Grandma gave us all kinds of meat. When my sister and I were kids and we went to school, we would take our lunch to grandma’s and eat her lunch instead.
Even the simplest of dishes in Grenada tasted really good, especially when grandma made it. Often, she would roast breadfruit at night and the next morning she would slice it and put it in salted water, before frying it. I remember a fish called jacks. Growing up, we either had this for breakfast or for dinner, but never for lunch. The small ones, we’d fry and eat everything; head, bones, tail, and all. It was eaten with bread or fried bakes. I remember when my mom would make fried bake. She had this way of organizing herself. The stove was in front of her, with counter space to the side and behind her. When she took the bakes out of the pan that she fried them in, she never put them next to her. She’d put it on the counter behind her, and that was always good for me because as soon as she turned around to make more, I’d snatch a whole bunch.
In Grenada, there are small towns or parishes, and within each parish, you have villages. There wasn't very much to do, especially in the time that I grew up. So much so, that if you had a tv with three channels, that was a lot. So people always met near the main road, at the junction, where the buses drove through. At night, after everybody finished working, they would go down to the junction and hang out. And when people are hanging out, several things would happen: arguments, food, and rum. There was always good food.
Hanging with the Guys
As I got older and I started hanging out with the guys, we started eating other things. The guys would cook and everybody would bring something, whether flour, breadfruit, or a root vegetable called dasheen. We ate a lot of Grenada’s national dish, Oil Down. It's basically flour dumplings, breadfruit, and whatever vegetables were available, like green bananas, dasheen, and yams. Usually, it's made with salted meats or fish. Two or three times a week, the guys and I would go somewhere and someone would make it. It incorporates all of these things, and then you add things like coconut milk, curry powder, and fresh grated turmeric.
There was something else that we’d make at the beach and it was called brown down. We’d take chicken, and brown it. Again, we’d make dumplings and put in whatever vegetables we had and cooked it down to this brown sauce.
Or, we’d build a big fire and just drop the breadfruit in there and just roast it. Coconut has this sort of skin on it, and you have to pull this thing out to expose the nut inside. This skin was like a scouring pad and we used that to rub off the charred parts of the breadfruit. We’d cut it open, and take out the inedible parts and put melted, salted butter. Other times they would take codfish and a smoked herring, and roast it in the embers of the fire.
These are the kinds of foods I grew up on.
Fish Market
There was a fish market. There was one of two ways you could get fish. You go down to the seashore and the fishing boats drive up and you point at your fish. Mind you, the fish is still alive.
People would take a pickup truck and go meet the fishing boats as they pulled up on the seashore. They’d buy the whole lot and put it in the back of their truck. They’d drive through the community blowing a conch shell.
When you hear it, you take your container and run. You go and you buy two pounds, five pounds, whatever you could afford. That's how fresh the food in the Caribbean was. I can speak authoritatively about Grenada because that's what I know intimately. There was nothing that was stored or frozen.
Returning to Grenada
Whenever I have time, I still make some of those dishes. I make the national dish whenever I can find the breadfruit. Between Church and Utica Avenue, there was this Korean grocery store that had everything that needed to make it, from the dasheen to the callaloo. I remember the last time I made it. I was looking at the breadfruit and this elderly lady came up to me and said “No, this one. Take this one.” She picked up six good ones for me and some for herself. I was so happy that I paid for her breadfruit. I never forgot that moment.
Food is a central part of Grenadian culture. During the time I grew up, people didn't have many material things. So whenever you go to a Grenadian person's house, they'd offer you food.
As an Adult
I do have some regrets. I never saw it as important to pay attention to how these meals were prepared. Where they came from, why they were prepared, the way they were prepared. The thing about it, though, is that the meals from my childhood, were really authentic and original. And the problem is that a lot of the people who know how to cook them have passed away.
The people in Grenada today are cooking the same things. But they're not doing it the way it was done back then, because they're not using the original ingredients. Because corporate culture has permeated every nook and cranny of the world, it has found its way into the food and altered the authenticity of the cuisine.
If I need authentic Grenadian oil down, I can't go to a restaurant in Grenada and have it cooked for me. Because it caters to the palette of the tourists. I’ve got to go to one of those villages, to one of those old ladies, and ask them to make it… and that's important.
