Gillian and I had switched gears and started on the topic of the one childhood dish which to this very day, still makes her heart dance. Based on her enthusiasm about the subject, I can only imagine her physical glow from talking about “Ackee and Corned Pork”, which I honestly believe was responsible for the speedy resumption of electricity service. To my surprise, the power was returned in less than twenty minutes. Now to get a full appreciation as to how and why “Ackee and Corned Pork” was and still is the one dish which makes Gillian’s heart dance, she graciously took me on a journey back to where it all began. Back to Waterford, Portmore, St. Catherine and even further back, to Asia District in Clarendon.
Growing up, her family lived very close to her extended family with her maternal grandmother being the main axis of the family. She recalls cooking being done everywhere around her. Her maternal grandfather, who was a chef by profession, would make punches, porridges, and ice-cream. These chilled delights were as evil on the palate as they were celestial. She would also delight in his creamy savoury cornmeal porridge made with fresh hand-grated and juiced coconut milk and accompanied with water crackers for dunking. Now this was delight of all the spices subtly sending off some pulses in the brain that left her wanting more.Now this was a delight of several spices which were subtly triggering off some pulses in the brain that left her wanting more.Growing up, her family lived very close to her extended family with her maternal grandmother being the main axis of the family. She recalls cooking being done everywhere around her. Her maternal grandfather, who was a chef by profession, would make punches, porridges, and ice-cream. These chilled delights were as evil on the palate as they were celestial. She would also delight in his creamy savoury cornmeal porridge made with fresh hand-grated and juiced coconut milk and accompanied with water crackers for dunking. Now this was delight of all the spices subtly sending off some pulses in the brain that left her wanting more.
As amazing as her grandfather was in the kitchen, it was her grandmother’s kitchen magic which held her and her extended family undeniably captive. As a homemaker, Gillian’s grandmother used to sell her baked products to help supplement the family’s modest finances. This naturally led to Gillian, her mom, her siblings, her aunts and her cousins to become avid cooks and connoisseurs in their own rights. In fact, so magnetized to cooking was one of her aunts that she opened her own restaurant in the USA.
It seems that in her very young and most impressionable years, Gillian thought, “… my aunts and grandma loved me so much that they would spend an entire day going late into the night baking all these delicious cakes for my birthday.” It would be some years later of helping the bakers that she would realize that her belief was true to a point. As mentioned earlier, Gillian’s birthday was very close to Christmas Day. A huge part of the Christmas (Yuletide) observance was enjoying moist, fruity, flavourful Jamaican Christmas Cake – the only cake which comes remotely close is the Jamaican Wedding Cake – accompanied by a well-chilled glass of Sorrel Juice (made from a species of hibiscus which seems to come into full bloom just in time for Christmas and bears some similarities to rosehip). This was one of the main reasons for all the excitement around baking these delights in addition to continuing the family’s baking tradition. The role of Gillian along with her cousins who would stay up all night was eating the remaining batter which was left back on the side of the mixing bowl.
As amazing an experience as this was for Gillian, she vividly recalls how traditions played an important part in the daily culinary escapades she went on. With both her parents away at work throughout the day, she was left in the affectionate care of her grandmother. Her grandmother, like most pre-21st century Jamaican homemakers, each day of the week religiously had their signature dish. The mores then, still holds true in many Jamaican homes today. Saturday is traditionally the soup day and no Sunday dinner is complete without rice and peas to complement the main meat dish. Anything but, was blasphemous. It was sacrilegious. But with this universe of awesome goodness from the family’s kitchen which she loved, there was one dish which her insatiable appetite just could not get enough of. This one dish – a slight variation of Jamaica’s national dish – “Ackee and Saltfish” can be traced back to the nook and cranny of a rural district named Asia.
Her maternal great grandmother (the mother of her maternal grandmother) lived in the rural district of Asia in the south-western hilly hinterlands of the parish of Clarendon. Asia is so close to Porus, a rural town in the neighbouring parish of Manchester that Asia is often mistaken as Porus. Porus, incidentally, was one of the train stations serviced by the then Jamaica Railway Corporation. To get to her great grandmother’s property, heading west along the southern coastline of Jamaica, you need to take a left turn just before you get to Juici Patties located between the towns of Trout Hall and Toll Gate in Clarendon. As you travel along the narrow road, you will eventually come to a fork (Y-junction).
To get to her great grandmother’s property, you would have to keep left. If you were to take the fork on the right and climb that hill, you would soon get to one of the most breathtakingly stunning view ever. Straight ahead you will see the resplendently beautiful vista of the Caribbean Sea and off in the distant to your right, you would see “Lovers Leap”. Lovers Leap is in St. Elizabeth – the home parish to Appleton – the world’s second oldest rum estate and distilleries. Lovers Leap is the stunningly beautiful cliff where two young enslaved who were madly in love would meet at nights until their masters discovered their romantic interludes. Rather than living apart from each other, they leapt from the cliff to live eternally together in love.
ジリアンと私は話を切り替えて、今でも彼女の心を躍らせている子供の頃の料理の話題を始めました。アキーとコンビーフの話をに熱中していたことから、電気の復旧が早く感じました。そうです、驚いたことに20分もしないうちに電気が戻ってきたのです。ジリアンの心を躍らせる料理といえば、アキーとコンポークであることを十分に理解してもらうために、彼女は親切にもすべての始まりの場所への旅に連れて行ってくれました。ウォーターフォード、ポートモア、セント・キャサリン、そしてさらに遡って、クラレンドンのアジア地区へ。
幼少期は、母方の祖母を中心とした家族の中で住んでいました。彼女の周りでは、いたるところで料理が行われていたと記憶しています。 彼女の母方の祖父は料理人であり、パンチやポリッジ、アイスクリームなどを作っていました。これらの冷えた喜びは、口の上で邪悪なものでした。彼女はまた、クリーミーで風味豊かなコーンミールポリッジに、手ですりおろした新鮮なココナッツミルクとジュースを入れて、ウォータークラッカーを添えてダンクインするのが好きでした。これはすべてのスパイスが微妙に脳内でパルスを送り出し、今この瞬間も彼女を魅了し常にもっと食べたくなるような外の世界のオデッセイでした。
彼女の祖父が台所で素晴らしい手腕を発揮するのと同様に、彼女と彼女の大家族を虜にしていたのは、彼女の祖母の台所の魔法でした。ジリアンの祖母は主婦であり、一家のささやかな家計を補うために自分で焼いた焼き菓子を売っていました。これは自然にジリアン、彼女のお母さん、彼女の兄弟、彼女の叔母と彼女のいとこたちが熱心な料理の愛好家になることにつながりました。実際料理に夢中になった叔母は、アメリカで自分のレストランを開いた一人でした。
ジリアンはとても幼かった頃、「叔母と祖母は私をとても愛していて、私の誕生日には一日中かけて夜遅くまでおいしいケーキを焼いてくれていた」と思っていたようです。パン屋を手伝って数年後、彼女は自分の記憶がある意味で真実であったことに気づくことになりました。前述したように、ジリアンの誕生日はクリスマスと非常に近かったのです。しっとりとしたフルーティーで風味豊かなジャマイカン・クリスマス・ケーキを楽しむことがクリスマスの行事の大部分を占めていました。これは、家族のパン作りの伝統を継続することに加えて、これらのお菓子作りで盛り上がった主な理由の一つでした。ジリアンの役割は一晩中起きていた彼女のいとこたちと一緒に、ボウルの側に残っていた残りの生地を食べていたことです。
これはジリアンにとって素晴らしい経験でしたが、彼女は毎日の料理の冒険に伝統がいかに重要な役割を果たしていたかを鮮明に覚えています。両親が一日中仕事で留守にしていたため、彼女は祖母の愛情のこもった世話を受けることになりました。彼女の祖母は21世紀以前の多くのジャマイカ人の主婦たちと同様に、週の毎日、宗教的に代表的な料理を食べていました。当時の習慣は今日でも多くのジャマイカの家庭で受け継がれています。土曜日は伝統的にスープの日であり、日曜日の夕食はメインの肉料理を補完するためのライス＆ピーズなしでは完結しません。それ以外のものは神への冒涜でした。しかし、彼女が愛した台所からの素晴らしい美味しさのこの宇宙中で、彼女の飽くなき食欲は、1つの料理がありました。ジャマイカの国民食である「アキーとソルトフィッシュ」を少しアレンジしたその一品は、アジアという名の田舎町の隅々にまで遡ることができます。
母方の曾祖母（母方の曾祖母の母）は、クラレンドンの南西部の丘陵地帯にあるアジアの農村地区に住んでいました。アジアは、隣のマンチェスターの田舎町ポーラスにあまりにも近いので、アジアはポーラスと間違われることが多いです。ポーラスは当時のジャマイカ鉄道公社(Jamaica Railway Corporation)がサービスを提供していた鉄道駅の一つでした。ジャマイカ南部の海岸線に沿って西に向かう曾祖母の土地に行くには、クラレンドンのトラウトホールとトールゲートの間にあるジューシー・ビーフ・パティ（Juici Beef Patties：パティショップの名称）に着く直前に左折する必要があります。細い道を進んでいくと、最終的には分岐点(Y字路)に来ます。
彼女の曾祖母の敷地に行くには、左に曲がらなければなりません。右の分岐点を取り、その丘を登った場合、あなたはすぐにこれまでで最も息をのむような見事な景色の一つを目にするでしょう。真っ直ぐ進むと、カリブ海の美しい景色が広がり、遠く右手には 「ラバーズ・リープ」が見えてきます。ラバーズ・リープは、世界で2番目に古いラム酒製造所と蒸留所であるアップルトンの故郷であるセント・エリザベスにあります。ラバーズ・リープは美しい崖です。口頭伝承によると恋に落ちた２人の奴隷が夜な夜なこの崖で逢瀬を重ねていました。女奴隷を欲しがっていたご主人に見つかり引き裂かれる前に、二人は愛の中で永遠に一緒に暮らすためにこの崖から飛び降りたといわれています。