Food (Tis the Season)

Should you ever visit us in the land of wood and water, you will probably be subjected to our import shopping list. This is more than just a ploy to scam some free food,...

Despite the pervasive poverty here, there is little obvious malnutrition. If you live in the country, are hungry and have no dollars, you can always steal a breadfruit, banana, or ackee off of the neighbor’s tree (what you may call “praedial larceny”). If you need some protein, there are fish in the sea. Even if you earn very little, you can still raise a chicken or two. Many rural people have small vegetable gardens adjacent to their zinc shacks, so there appears to be an adequate supply of food. This is fine if you like a diet of breadfruit, banana, ackee and chicken with a couple of vegetables. However, we prefer a little more variety, so we go grocery shopping.

We buy most of our fruit from Jason, a Rastafarian vendor at Mosquito Cove, who I pass on my commute. Along with the banana, plantain, pineapple, lime, and pear (what you may call an “avocado”), I get vague and occasionally confusing infusions of the Rasta way. If I have time, there are Red Stripes in his cooler which I consume during the lecture. He is a self-proclaimed herbalist, healer, musician, drum maker, farmer, and politically astute commentator. As such, I am never in a real hurry to leave. Plus, he speaks more Patois than English, so I use the opportunity to train my ear, little by little, to understand the local speech.
Hopewell is a little village also on my commute. I buy my Gleaner every morning from Beverly, an elderly woman who sells them there. I swerve across the oncoming traffic, stop in the opposing lane, and she brings me my paper,.... all for just JA $14.

Every Friday is market day in Hopewell, when I actually get out of the van (what you may call a “truck”) and scour the market in search of vegetables. The market is crowded along both sides of the road and spills onto the pavement. There is a market building, but most of the vendors stick to the high exposure areas adjacent to the roadway. Wares are sold out of the backs of trucks and vans, from pushcarts, or from displays laid out on tarps and blankets.

I buy most of what I need from two guys who sell their produce from the back of a pick up truck. I buy from them primarily because they are located next to the newspaper lady, and have a relatively consistent selection and quality. Early in the day, their truck is full to overflowing with onions, potatoes, scallions, coconuts, beets, and cabbage. I will spend a couple hundred dollars here, then walk down the road fifty meters or so to the ladies who sell yam and, if I am there at the right time, callaloo.

Most times, though, I cannot get all that I need at the Hopewell market, so I try to stop in Lucea later in the day. Lucea, the parish seat of Hanover, has a substantially larger market than at Hopewell. There are carts and bins of attractive produce, crammed into too small a space, packed with shoppers.

Hustling. Bustling. Noisy. Here, I am more often able to find good green peppers, green beans, callaloo, and tomatoes, as well as other vegetables which look tasty at the time. My business goes to whoever has the best looking tomatoes. I try to hit this market at lunchtime, so I can stop for patties or Ital on the way back to work.
For dry goods, we visit the grocery store, located in a strip mall in Montego Bay. We regularly spend JA $3,000 here - on rice, peas (what you may call “beans”), soda, bread, pasta, dry goods and cupboard fare. It is not dissimilar from any Ma and Pa grocery store in Smallville. There are a dozen aisles, dairy to the left, produce in the back, house wares to the right. It has got a peculiar smell, but you get used to it.

There is a large portion of shelf space given to syrups. Not the maple flavored pancake variety, but mango, guava, strawberry, passion fruit, and pineapple flavored syrups. What these are used for, we have no idea, but they sure stock a lot of them. One of the local brands of everything is Grace, which amuses me, as Grace Brothers was the haberdashery, subject of much confusion, tomfoolery and entendre, featured in that old Brit comedy, “Are You Being Served”.

One word of tropical shopping advice; NEVER buy from the freezer case. The food probably was not continuously frozen. More likely, it was frozen at the plant, thawed during transport, refrozen, then rethawed and refrozen in the freezer case. Another word of advice; stay away from the chicken feet. Those bright yellow appendages may look tasty in their twenty count bags, and the price cannot be beat, but do not forget that they are the feet of chicken. Eat at your own risk.

We usually go down every aisle. The selection changes often, so new items may be available at any time. Sometimes, items will be stocked where there is space for them, instead of where it makes sense to stock them, so you need to be alert. If we are lucky and find rare food, we will buy more than we need, continuing the shortage cycle. There is never a shortage of boxed milk, it seems, nor pepper sauces.
Undoubtedly, the shopping list is still incomplete, so we may go to the Farm and Fresh, a specialty grocery next door, for high priced, yet desirable items that we cannot find elsewhere.

Next to the Farm and Fresh is the beer and rum retailer. Here we purchase from their selection of Red Stripe, Ting (a locally produced, less carbonated, sweeter Squirt), tonic, and scores of varieties of rums, rum creams, and rum liqueurs. They get a lot of our money. Ask Jackie about Banana Rum Cream and Chocolate Syrup on the rocks.

We were purchasing meat, mostly chicken, at the grocery store, but we may get a better selection at a butcher who just opened near the hacienda. At the grocery, the beef is never that tasty, there is little pork, and turkey runs over JA $500/kg, so we do not eat a lot of those. When the grocery has beef, you see every cut on the cow. The same with pork. Apparently, they butcher the entire animal at once, and fill the case with every thing from T-bones to tongue to tripe. If we get there at the right time, cheap T-bones. If we are late.... cheap tripe.

There is also a small grocery outside of Hopewell, where you might get lucky and find sour or cream cheeses, so it is worth a stop on occasion. In addition, Tony stops by the apartment two or three times a week with fresh orange, grapefruit, ortanique, and passion fruit juices.

We shop at each of these locations most every week and still cannot find all of the food that we like, yet take for granted in the States. Our list is always incomplete. So, when you visit, remember the Rice-a-roni, Kraft Parmesan Cheese, and Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies.

There is more that we need. We will send you a list. Read More......