Month: June 2014

Last updated by at .

Pickapeppa Sauce, a Jamaican Original

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

I hadn’t thought of Pickapeppa Sauce until my friend, Susan, asked me to pick up a bottle for her. Her supply had run out and she couldn’t find the popular sauce in her neighborhood grocery store.

Her simple request brought back a flood of memories reminded me how beloved this original Jamaican sauce is. It is the only prepared sauce my mother and grandmother used.

I remember being fascinated by Pickapeppa Sauce, from its distinctive label of a bird contemplating a bright red bird pepper to the unusual name of the rural community, Shooter’s Hill, where Pickapepper Company is located.

Pickapepper Sauce, a Jamaican Original
Pickapepper Sauce

Pickapeppa is versatile. You can use it as a marinade, a meat sauce, a steak sauce, barbecue and pepper sauce, and to flavor everything from vegetables to scrambled egg.

Slightly thick and dark, more sweet than peppery, Pickapeppa is made from onions, tomatoes, tamarind, mango, raisins, sugar, cane vinegar, salt, pepper, and spices. The ingredients are blended and left to age in oak barrels for a year before bottling.

The Pickapeppa Company has been making Pickappa Sauce for 93 years at its location in Shooter’s Hill, Manchester. The company, which has been family-owned since 1945, employs about 50 people and purchases approximately 80% of its raw materials from local farmers.

Pickapeppa exports 95% of its products and earns approximately US$1.5 million annually, primarily from exports to the US. This local favorite can be found in restaurants and pantries worldwide and, I’ve discovered, is even sold at Walmart and on Amazon.

Pickapeppa Baked Buffalo Style Wings
Serves 20
The easiest way to make hot wings that are crispy without being fried. You can add more cayenne or Pickapeppa Sauce to butter ratio if you like them spicer.


Write a review

Save Recipe
Print

Prep Time
15 min

Cook Time
45 min

Total Time
2 hr

Prep Time
15 min

Cook Time
45 min

Total Time
2 hr

Ingredients
  1. ¾ cup all-purpose flour
  2. ½ tsp cayenne pepper
  3. ½ tps garlic powder
  4. ½ tps salt
  5. 20 chicken wings
  6. ½ cup melted butter
  7. ½ cup Pickapeppa Sauce (your choice of heat and flavor)
Instructions
  1. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and lightly grease with cooking spray. Place the flour, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and salt into a resealable plastic bag, and shake to mix. Add the chicken wings, seal, and toss until well coasted with the flour mixture. Place the wings onto the prepared baking sheet, and place into the refrigerator. Refrigerate at least one hour.
  2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C)
  3. Whisk together the melted butter and Pickapeppa Sauce in a small bowl. Dip the wings into the butter mixture, and place back on the baking sheet. Bake in the preheated oven until the chicken is not longer pink in the center, and crispy on the outside, about 45 minutes. Turn the wings over halfway during cooking so they cook evenly.
InsideJourneys https://insidejourneys.com/

Have a foodie post you’d like to share? Join the #FoodieTuesday linkup and add it here  –

  • Add the link to your foodie post in the link tool below.
  • As a courtesy, please include a link back to this post.
  • To make it a fun linkup, don’t forget to leave a comment here and comment on as many posts as you can.
  • If you Tweet, G+, Facebook please use the hashtag #FoodieTuesday.

 Loading InLinkz ...


 

The Short-Lived Night-Blooming Cactus

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

I thought it quite an achievement when I caught the once yearly flowering of the night-blooming cereus last year. I had experienced a phenomenon many flower lovers would probably give a vital body part to see.

Visiting a family friend over the weekend, I noticed several unopened buds on a cactus on the periphery of their property. How unusual, I thought to myself. You should get a photo. But I returned my attention to the people with whom I was speaking, people I hadn’t seen in a while.

During a lull in the evening’s activities, I looked over and saw that flowers had replaced the buds I had seen earlier. I didn’t have my camera so I grabbed my phone and practically dragged my cousin, an award-winning flower lover, over to where the night-blooming cactus was. She had seen it too and told me after that she planned to ask our family friend for a cutting.

The Short-Lived Night-Blooming Cactus
Cactus

(Jamaican women are passionate about their gardens and will willingly trade cuttings with friends and other flower lovers. So you’ll see the same flowers in the gardens of women who are friends.)

The flowers looked similar to the cereus I had seen last year. It was surprising to me then I remembered that the cereus is from the flowering cactus family.

Here’s a photo of the night-blooming cereus for comparison.

Night Blooming Cereus
Night-Blooming Cereus

While the night-blooming cereus lasts only one night, this genus of the night-blooming cactus lasts two. Both attract a special moth that causes them to pollinate.

As I write this I realize that one thing was different — the cactus didn’t have the subtle fragrance that accompanied the cereus. But it had rained, no poured, that evening so the rain could have washed away the scent.

Have you seen a night-blooming cactus?

This week, I’m linking this post to Budget Traveler’s Sandbox and  Travel Photo Monday. Be sure to check out the other photos that are posted there.

Mannish Water Soup, An Aphrodiasic?

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

Though it seems simple enough, I’ve never made mannish water soup. I’ve never even tried to. Perhaps because it’s one of those Jamaican dishes that is best to cook outdoors over a wooden fire – sweat pouring down the face, arms and back, smoke stinging the eyes.

Or, perhaps as the name suggests, it should be prepared by men, which it is. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of or seen a woman making mannish water soup. (Maybe with Jamaicans who live abroad, roles might have changed. Ditto the preparation. It’d be difficult to build a fire and cook outside.)

Considered an aphrodisiac, mannish water soup, is made from goat’s offal – the intestines, head, feet and testicles – which are scrupulously cleaned then washed (now, that I’ve seen women do), the head and feet roasted over an open fire then scraped to remove hair (I’ve seen boys no more than 10 do this part).

The meat is then cut into small pieces, mixed with green bananas, coco, yam, carrots, spinners (dumplings), seasoned with Scotch bonnet peppers, thyme, etc., and left to reduce to a delicious soup.

Mannish water soup gets its distinct flavor from the bananas with a light smoky taste from the goat.

Mannish water soup is served hot as an appetizer, in paper cups at large gatherings, like the weddings, parties. For less casual dining, like the event I attended this week, it is served in soup plates. You can even add white rum to kick the flavor up.

Admittedly, mannish water soup isn’t for everyone so I was surprised to see a recipe on the Food Network, even more surprised that it suggested that lamb could be substituted. Wonder what the purists would think.

So is mannish water soup an aphrodiasic? Well…it probably depends on how much you end up drinking.

Mannish Water Soup


Write a review

Save Recipe
Print

Ingredients
  1. 4 lb. goat’s head, tripe and feet (get butcher to cut in small pieces)
  2. 12 green bananas
  3. 1 lb. flour for spinners
  4. 3-4 hot peppers
  5. 1 lb. coco
  6. ½ lb. carrots
  7. ½ lb turnips
  8. 3 chochos
  9. 3 gallons water
  10. ½ lb scallion
  11. 4 sprigs thyme
  12. 2 lb. yam
  13. Salt to taste
Instructions
  1. Chop meat into small pieces (if not already chopped)
  2. Wash and place in a 5-gallon container with 3 gallons of hot water.
  3. When the water returns to a boil, simmer until meat is cooked soft (about 2 ½ -3 hours).
  4. Peel green bananas and add all other ingredients, except for flour, i.e. vegetables, seasonings etc. cook uncovered for one hour more.
  5. Use flour to make spinners. Add to stock.
  6. Correct seasoning and remove hot peppers. Add more water if necessary.
  7. Serve hot.
Adapted from The Real Taste of Jamaica
Adapted from The Real Taste of Jamaica
InsideJourneys https://insidejourneys.com/

Have a foodie post you’d like to share? Join the #FoodieTuesday linkup and add it here  –

  • Add the link to your foodie post in the link tool below.
  • As a courtesy, please include a link back to this post.
  • To make it a fun linkup, don’t forget to leave a comment here and comment on as many posts as you can.
  • If you Tweet, G+, Facebook please use the hashtag #FoodieTuesday.

 

 Loading InLinkz ...


 

A Subtlety, Provocative Sugar Sculptures by Artist Kara Walker

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

I suddenly remembered Kara Walker’s installation of sugar sculptures last weekend and rushed to the Domino Sugar Refining Plant in Brooklyn to catch it.

Called A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby – an Homage to the Unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, it left me a bit confused.

I knew the US didn’t grow sugarcane. What I didn’t know was that the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, which was built in 1856, was by 1870 processing 3 million pounds of sugar each day – more than half the sugar used in the U.S. – from sugar that was shipped there from around the world.

The plant, which is located on an 11-acre spread on the East River, and employed 4-5,000 people, ceased operation in 2004 and is now slated for demolition. Luxury residential units with spectacular waterfront views of Manhattan will sit in its place.

Walker, who is well known for her black cut-paper silhouettes, makes good use of the plant’s expansive space and 10-story high ceilings to construct the centerpiece of the exhibition: a massive 35-foot tall sphinx made from 4 tons of white sugar. Its face made me think of Aunt Jemima, its body a cat.

The other sculptures were of children – sugar-coated babies – toting straw baskets of the raw sweetener.

A Subtlety is thought provoking and smelly. The unmistakable aroma of carmelizing sugar, of cut sugar cane baking under a tropical sun took me back to my childhood on my family’s sugar cane farm. I left with more questions than answers. Several days later and I’m still processing the images I saw, the messages they conveyed to me.

A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby is on view weekends only until July 6 at the Domino Sugar Refining Plant, South 1st Street at Kent Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It is free and open to the public. There was a line when we went on Sunday but it seemed to move quickly. Go early and take a hat to shade you from the sun.

 

Linking up this week with Travel Photo Thursday that Nancie organizes. Be sure to stop by to see other photos from locations around the world.

Curried Goat

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

I’ve been making curried goat about three to four times a month since January, more than I usually do, after my nutritionist suggested that I add some animal protein to my diet. I’m not complaining – I love curried goat. I could eat it every week.

Until maybe 10 years ago, you’d find curried goat on the menu only on special occasions and large gatherings where lots of food is needed like weddings, parties and funeral. Typically, the host would buy a goat and have it butchered.

He would then hire a chef or someone from the community, usually male, who’s skilled at making curried goat. There’s nothing more disappointing and potentially embarrassing than unpalatable curried goat.

The chef would clean the goat and cook it out in the open. Every part of the animal would be used: the intestines (sometimes with the head and feet) to make a soup (called goat head or mannish water).

The flesh slow cooked in curry, Scotch bonnet peppers, thyme, scallions, garlic, ginger, and pimento berries. Some chefs add lime juice and white rum. Chunks of carrots and potatoes would also be added to make it a hearty stew, which typically, is served with white rice, sometimes roti.

Following the abolition of slavery, the government looked abroad for workers. They went as far as India where potential workers were lured by the promise of making a fortune working on sugar plantations. The Indians brought with them their curry and curried goat, roti, and callaloo.

These days, you can find curried goat on the menu of almost every restaurant that sells local foods. It’s still the go-to meal for any occasion where large groups gather.

Curried Goat


Write a review

Save Recipe
Print

Ingredients
  1. 4 tablespoons Jamaican curry powder
  2. 2 fresh Scotch bonnet peppers, seeded and minced
  3. 3 garlic cloves, minced
  4. 1 large onion, diced
  5. 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
  6. 1 bunch scallions, chopped
  7. Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
  8. 3 pounds bone-in goat meat (from leg) cut into 1-inch cubes
  9. 2 tablespoons butter
  10. 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  11. 1 bay leaf
  12. 4 boiling potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
  13. 2 medium carrots, cut into chunks
  14. Juice of one lime (optional)
  15. White rum (optional)
  16. Water to cover the meat
Instructions
  1. In large bowl, mix curry, peppers, garlic, onion, scallions, thyme, salt and pepper. Add to meat and mix to coat. Refrigerate and marinate at least 1 hour and up to 12.
  2. Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add remaining curry, stirring constantly, until it colors the oil. (To make it peppery, fry the pepper in the oil before adding the meat.)
  3. Add meat in batches, brown on all sides. When all the meat is browned, add water, remaining marinade, bay leaf, and optional limejuice and rum. Bring to a simmer, cover and slow cook 1 hour.
  4. Add potatoes and cook until sauce thickens, meat is fork tender and potatoes are cooked, 30 to 40 minutes. Taste for seasoning.
  5. Serve with white rice.
InsideJourneys https://insidejourneys.com/

 

Have a foodie post you’d like to share? Join the #FoodieTuesday linkup and add it here  –

  • Add the link to your foodie post in the link tool below.
  • As a courtesy, please include a link back to this post.
  • To make it a fun linkup, don’t forget to leave a comment here and comment on as many posts as you can.
  • If you Tweet, G+, Facebook please use the hashtag #FoodieTuesday.

 

 

 Loading InLinkz ...


Cassava, Rich in History and Carbs

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

Continuing the theme of potentially dangerous foods, this week, we’ll take a look at cassava, a staple of the Jamaican diet since before Columbus landed on the island in 1494. Cassava was the main source of food for the Tainos, the island’s indigenous people who ate it with a variety of fish and meats.

Cassava, also called yuca or manioc, is a carbohydrate-packed root that needs little water, fertilizer or pesticides to grow, and can be harvested anytime from 8 to 24 months after planting. There are two varieties – bitter and sweet.

Cassava
Cassava at a supermarket in NJ

Perhaps because it is so simple to cultivate and so rich in carbohydrates (it provides the third largest source of carbs after rice and corn), calcium and vitamin C, cassava feeds about half a billion people, according to Wikipedia.

But cassava also contains cyanide so preparing it isn’t for the inexperienced. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could leave trace amounts of the toxin that could cause illnesses as severe as partial paralysis.

Cassava
Depiction of Taino woman pounding cassava, Outameni Experience, 2011

In Jamaica, we typically dig the cassava from the ground, scrape it and cut into small pieces or grate it and press it through a cloth to remove the juice, which contains the toxin.

But that juice isn’t discarded. We use it to make starch, though I haven’t seen it done recently, and the residue (the trashy part of the cassava) to make flour or formed into a flat, round bread (like Pita and about the same size), that we call bammie. After we make the bammie, we steam or fry it on a griddle.

Cassava
Bammie

I didn’t always like bammie, which like cassava, is quite bland but steamed or fried, it goes very well with fish. We always eat it with fish – fried crispy or escoveitch – I don’t remember eating it or seeing it eaten with anything else. In this respect, we’re carrying on a tradition of the Taino, our indigenous people.

According to an article I read, several years ago, we almost dropped cassava for wheat bread but an FAO project helped resucitate cassava cultivation and bammie production in Jamaica. Now bammie can be found in every supermarket on the island. There are even ‘cocktail’ bammies – smaller – about 2” in diameter, and some which look like breadsticks.

Steamed fish and vegetables
Steamed fish, vegetables and bammie from Little Ochie

But for freshly made bammie, I usually head to Scott’s Cove, a little spot just at the border of the parishes of Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth. There, vendors sell bammie, fried fish, soup, etc. I prefer to buy the steamed ones but they have a pretty short shelf life.

While I was researching this post, I found an article on a not so new use for cassava. The company that makes Red Stripe, the local beer, is looking to replace imported corn syrup, which accounts for up to 40% of the brewery’s raw material import, with locally grown cassava. This is really good news for Red Stripe and cassava.

Join the #FoodieTuesday Linkup by –

  • Posting a foodie photo on your blog
  • Adding the link to your foodie post in the link tool at the bottom of this post
  • Leaving a comment
  • Tweeting this post using the hashtag #FoodieTuesday

 

See you at #FoodieTuesday!

 Loading InLinkz ...


Sculptures From the 1964 New York World’s Fair

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

The sculpture below, Forms in Transit, was the first one I saw when I arrived at Flushing Meadow Park Corona Park for the 1964 New York World’s Fair festival a few weeks ago. I didn’t realize it was a sculpture until I began researching other sculptures I saw in the Park that day.

Sculptures at the 1964 New York World's Fair
Forms in Transit

Festival organizers commissioned five sculptures that were to remain in the park after the Fair was over. Each representing space exploration, the main theme of the Fair. Here are the ones I saw.

Forms in Transit is quite large, 43 feet long, and made of aluminum and sheet metal. It looks like an aircraft but it embodies the concept of motion and change. Sculptor Theodore Roszak designed Forms in Transit.

Sculptures at the 1964 New York World's Fair
“Freedom of the Human Spirit”

Freedom of the Human Spirit, designed by Marshall Fredericks, depicts a nude man and woman with wild swans soaring skyward.

Sculptures at the 1964 New York World's Fair
“The Rocket Thrower”

Donald De Lue’s Rocket Thrower stands 43 feet high and depicts a chiseled man whose right hand is launching a small sphere into the sky that leaves an arching trail of flames behind. He throws a swirl of stars with his left hand that circle the rocket.

A man walked by as I aimed my camera at the sculpture and said I should take a look at the finger of his right hand. If you look closely, it seems he is giving the finger.

Sculptures at the 1964 New York World's Fair
The Unisphere

Designed by a landscape architect, Gilmore D. Clarke, for the New York World’s Fair, the Unisphere is, according to Wikipedia, the world’s largest global sculpture. It is 140 feet high, 120 feet in diameter and weighs 700,000 pounds, 900,000 if you include the base.

The Unisphere is massive and impressive, especially with the water jets turned on. It dominates the park and I ended up taking photos of it from several angles.

After I finished last week’s post, I found some photos that really capture the excitement of the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Hope you’ll take a look here.

Linking up this week with Travel Photo Thursday that Nancie organizes. Be sure to stop by to see other photos from locations around the world.

 

Ackee Under Renewed Scrutiny by the US

Posted on by Marcia Mayne

I was doing research online a few days ago when I saw something that had me almost jump out of my seat: ackee is banned in the US.

How could that be, I wondered. I saw several cans of ackee in the supermarket last weekend.

Ackee, Jamaica’s national fruit, was banned in the US for 27 years until 2000 because of the toxin, Hypoglycin A, which can cause symptoms as mild as vomiting to severe as coma and death.

When the US lifted the ban, only two of the island’s processing plants satisfied the FDA’s food safety requirements and could begin exporting the fruit to the lucrative US market.

Exports to the UK and Canada, estimated then at $10 million annually, were expected to double within two or three years making ackee Jamaica’s largest agricultural export.

According to the FDA’s newly released “guidance,” its district offices may detain, without physical examination, all ackee products offered for import.

Ackee likely came to Jamaica with enslaved people from West Africa. It is here that Captain Bligh (yes, the infamous Bligh of the Bounty) was introduced to the fruit. He took the tree to Kew Gardens in 1793, where it was named Blighia sapida in his honor.

Ackee grows three fruits to a pod. The fruit is yellow (like the color of scrambled eggs), has a hard, glossy black seed and a bright pink membrane. Both the seed and membrane are removed prior to cooking. There are two types of ackee, one that is firm (called cheese) and holds its shape after cooking and another that is softer (called butter) and will break apart if overcooked.

Ackee Under Renewed Scrutiny by the US
Ackee Dip with Fried Plantain from Miss Lily’s Restaurant, NYC

Although ackee is found in other Caribbean islands, it is more popular in Jamaica than anywhere else. Ours is the only country that grows, eats and exports ackee. Usually, it is paired with saltfish, onions, peppers, thyme, and tomatoes but it can also be curried. I’ve even seen a recipe for ackee cheesecake in Rosemary Parkinson’s, Nyam Jamaica.

One local winemaker, who I met a couple years ago, is now producing ackee wine. It wasn’t bad either. And just last night, I had an appetizer of plantain chips and pureed ackee (dip). 

The trunk of the ackee tree is also useful. Hard and immune to termites, it is great for making furniture. The green fruits can produce soap, and the flowers can be used in cosmetics.

According to the FDA, the guidance describes the agency’s current thinking and should be used as recommendation only. But it has created a ‘green list’ of companies that can export fruits to the US.

Join the #FoodieTuesday Linkup by –

  • Posting a foodie photo on your blog
  • Adding the link to your foodie post in the link tool at the bottom of this post
  • Leaving a comment
  • Tweeting this post using the hashtag #FoodieTuesday

 

See you at #FoodieTuesday!

 

 Loading InLinkz ...