Jamaica: Roast Fish

Mi neglect unoo bad bad don’t it! I'm still in Jamaica, but the writing part of my brain is processing work now, so as I pointed out earlier, some things get secondary focus at times like this. Nonetheless, I thought I could share something that didn’t take as much thought and crafting, as I know the "Jamaica: Of white linens and street food" post will. It’s a delicate balance talking about the ways cultural xenophobia and ethnocentrism are manifested in eating habits among travelers, but once I think it through, it coming.

Till then though mek wi talk bout likkle fish; my favorite way of cooking and eating fish: roasting. One of the things that I miss most being in the Midwest is an affordable variety of fresh tropical seafood. Living in coastal cities for 28 of my 29 years thoroughly spoiled me where that is concerned and I am quite the seafood snob. Add to that not having a grill yet (thought I am thinking about it seriously for the fall) and it becomes clear that I don’t get to make and eat roast fish Jamaican style very much. But a Jamaica we deh, so you know seh likkle fish haffi run. As you know by now every thing about food: procurement, preparation, and consumption all contribute to the experience of eating. I still need to tell you about Lisa and I and our 441 pan chicken adventure don’t it? Soon man. Soon. Anyway, last Sunday after church Mommy and I decide we are going to head to the seaside at Port Morant  to look fish.  We stopped at two different spots and ended up with some parrot , snapper , and doctor fishes . Note the eyes on the snapper picture. In case you don't know how to tell when fish is fresh, its all in the eyes. They must be clear and not cloudy. Thank Lisa, or is it Mommy?

Now doctor is a tricky fish. Sometimes, people complain that it repeats (i.e. you keep burping it hours after eating it), or if it's old, its tough when it's cooked. It’s touch and go when you select doctor fish, but if you get a good young doctor fish, season it up right and roast it, it’s really really good. But like I said it’s touch and go, so every time we buy doctor we take the risk and this time it was no different. Whether your preference is doctor, snapper, parrot, or whatever for roast fish, my method is pretty much the same. So what I have for you today (in my best Creative Cooking voice) is a roast fish how to. Whatever you happen to pick out outa seaside, at the fish market, in Publix, Schnucks or HyVee, you can test it out this way. And never mind some of my descriptors, you hear. 

INGREDIENTS

4 whole white fish (snapper, doctor, etc.)

2-3 limes

4 stalks scallions 

1/2 small onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 smallish carrot

4 smallish okras

1/2 biggish scotch bonnet pepper (adjust or optional depending on your tolerance)

1 sweet pepper (bell pepper)

1 package chicken noodle mix (fish tea mix also works well if you have it)

Butter (optional)

Black pepper

Salt

METHOD

(di fixins - minus di garlic, I remembered it at the last minute)

1. Wash fish, and soak in water with the juice from the limes. This goes a long way to cutting some of the raw from the fish, especially if it isn’t super fresh.

(stuffing)

2. Chop scallions, onion, garlic, carrot, sweet and scotch bonnet peppers, slice okras and mix together with noodle packet and set aside.

3. Drain fish, rinse with just water once more and pat dry with paper towel.

4. Tear a piece of foil large enough to wrap the fish securely in (no drips) and put one fish on it.

5. Using a sharp knife, make a diagonal slice on either side of the fish. Do not cut through the middle bone. Depending on the size of the fish you can make two slices on either side. I only did one for the ones I did today.

6. Sprinkle both sides of the fish with salt and pepper to taste.

7. (Optional step) Spread a little (and I mean just a tups) butter on either side to spread the salt and pepper.

8. Open the belly and stuff it with the stuffing mix.

9. Sprinkle some of the stuffing mix on top and wrap the fish securely in the foil.

10. Repeat steps 4-9 for each fish.

11. Roast on a closed grill for 45 minutes to an hour. You can also bake in a 350-degree oven for the same amount of time.

We already know, I appreciate a flexible recipe that can take a good modification and this roast fish is no exception. One of the most amazing things to me about Jamaican and by extension Caribbean cooking is that it is a cuisine of necessity, invention, and convenience. That is, you cook whe u got inna di house.  Take toto (coconut bread) for example, it’s the Sunday dinner dessert that you make from trash. Follow me now, coconut trash from the coconut milk for the rice and peas, carrot trash from the carrot juice, likkle flour, sugar, one or so eggs, spices to taste and a it dat (the recipe in the Enid Donaldson book is the one I use). Nothing is wasted. One of my students made toto for her presentation on Caribbean cooking and brought it to share with the class. It wasn’t quite like it could be if it was made from freshly grated coconut, but the Bakers Shredded Coconut that she used still made a nice toto. Future post: “Cooking Jamaican When is not New York or Miami You Live”. I should be making a list of these promised future posts shouldn't I?

Back to di fish argument though, pretty much any mix of veggies can work for the stuffing; it all depends on what you have at home. There are few things that we always have on hand, like scallions, onions, and garlic. These combine to make the backbone of any good roast fish stuffing. You know if you’re cooking fish, you have to pick up some okra, and after that it’s pretty much whatever else you have on hand. You might also want to put into the belly a water cracker or two (depending on the size of the fish), and then put the stuffing on top of the cracker in the belly. Crackers can also go on top or under the fish, depending on what you like. It's what you have on hand, or in my case, what you remember is on hand.

So yesterday, we ate roast fish with macaroni salad and I’m almost sure by now you're wondering if it did eat good.  Hopefully this answers your question. 

Compliments to Alli B on the super super mango passion drink, the perfect company for a roast fish dinner on a summer evening. The only essential ingredient missing was Lisa. 
 

Till such time, I’ll be where the food is.

Jamaica: Dialing it down a notch

So I’m in Jamaica on a research trip/vacation. I have to figure out sooner rather than later a productive way to allocate time across the two so I actually get research done and not obsess about the work I could be doing during the vacation portion of the program. I’ll figure it out though. I neglected you all in the past two weeks because I was preparing two papers for a conference last week, and of course there was the actual conferencing. I remember mentioning in one of my posts that when I am in work mode, that’s it for everything else – so now you know why I haven’t been sharing the eat goods as frequently as I began. Nonetheless, I am back and have some nyamins related musings to share.

I was at CSA's 34th annual conference all of last week, and Thursday was my first presentation, at 8am. I got asked to be on that specially arranged panel after a few of the original presenters dropped out. I was a little reluctant when my ubiquitous (even post PhD) PhD supervisor called and pitched it – I write on The Pagoda , The Pagoda’s author Patricia Powell would be responding to the presentations (btw she has a new book out The Fullness of Everything ). Good pitch yes? Yes, but I had already submitted a panel of my own, and that would mean two presentations at CSA – something only the incredibly nuff and overachievers do. Yes I know, I fall into both categories at times, but dat nuh mean seh mi like when I’m perceived as either of those ways. I got some really upsetting critique along those lines this past week that I had to call big sis to vent on, and they still bother me, but I’m working on placing it all into a perspective devoid of negativity and brings serenity. Nadia insisted this week that I was so not mellow, but totally high-strung - ouch. We met and became fast friends with a USC colleague Allyson at CSA in Brazil 2007. 

I met her husband this trip, and he called me type triple A and kept on feeding me calming herbal supplements . They did work to take some of the edge off, so if you are a supplement person they might be worth a try. 

I approach pretty much everything I do with a spirit of excellence. It’s a part of my faith system that I work actively to maintain and it hasn’t ever failed me. Of course it comes with requisite anxiety and some stress, but those of you who know me, know that this is something that works, at times exceptionally in my life. Knowing that Powell would be responding to my work, added a little pressure, but there was no way I was going say no – two presentations, and overachieving cyaading or not. Bear wid me, how this all comes to food will be apparent soon. The second presentation was stressful for other reasons; it was about black masculinity, sports, politics and pretty much very new areas of inquiry for me. It was built around the implications of amalgamating the two iconic visages featured in the editorial cartoon below.

This presentation was more about soliciting feedback on foundational thoughts than it was about presenting research. CSA is a tough place to do this because its international and multi-disciplinary – you can get great feedback, but you can also be traumatized. So I started the week with much on the brain. It never made it easier that the presentations were on the last two days, so I was carrying them all week. Put on top of that, I came to Jamaica without starting, much less finishing the second presentation. I prioritized the first one (it would have to be delivered in Powell’s presence) and did something that I have never done before – writing a presentation during a conference – pure nerves.

All this being said, CSA would schedule my panels for possibly the two worst spots on the program: 8am Thursday and Friday morning. Thursday wasn’t so bad. We had a decent audience; even my BFF Dr Chin showed up to offer some support and to see Powell (she read The Pagoda over spring break when we were in Miami buying her wedding dress).  I should add that I was expecting two other presenters. All three of us would present, and Powell would respond. Not so when I get there on Thursday morning. This panel had been plagued by bad luck from its inception. My dissertation supervisor had to drop out of the conference because of a bad accident with dogs that subsequently involved surgery, a wheel chair, and being grounded for three months. Di food story a come; it’s called build up - hold on. The person that stepped in on her behalf should have had a paper, but alas on Thursday morning she says, “I don’t have a paper. I was with Pat last week, and had graduation last week and didn’t get a chance to write one.” Oh, and that’s not all “Paula [third presenter] isn’t coming, so its just you.” Great.

Outside of the havoc wreaked mentally by holding up this panel that I wasn’t even supposed to be on by myself, it went well. It sucked that I had neglected my own proposed panel to make sure this presentation was super tight, but at the end of the day, professionally it was a good thing. In a decent circle of colleagues I am now the epitome of a trooper and Jah know I will be calling on all their asses for the compensatory favors. By the time the panel ended, I just wanted to get some coffee and food (see I told you it was coming). I was sitting alone in the hotel dining room picking at stuff and coming down from heightened annoyance and anxiety when Lesley calls to say she is off and if I want to do something. I thought of the afternoon panels I wanted to see, which included the grad students from UM that I wanted to support and a few interesting films, but thought you know what f%ck it, I want to go to Hellshire.

The combination of sun, sand, sea, and super fresh seafood was precisely what I needed to really decompress from all the anxiety and annoyance I had been carrying all week. Nadia had already changed back into her nightclothes and was fully bedded down for an afternoon nap when I charged into the room declaring, “get your swim suit on, we going to Hellshire.” I love that Nadia only protests for all of 2 seconds and then with just a little grumbling gets up and rolls with whatever I want to do. She is the perfect, pocket size travel companion – and the men in Jamaica LOVE her. We roped in Allyson and her husband Joe, piled into Lesley’s civic and headed out for one of the most delightfully lazy afternoons I have ever had. In one of Hellshire’s signature thatched wooden shacks, on a sand dusted ply board picnic table, over roast fish (stuffed with the pickle they pour over the fried fish lawdamercy!), garlic lobster, festival and a ice cold D&G pineapple soda, I forgot about the stress I had carried all week and even that I still didn’t have a conclusion for presentation #2, scheduled for the next morning bright and early. There is something about super fresh fish that only requires a little salt and pepper to bring out its flavor. When it’s fresh, as in, just pulled from the sea 2 hours ago fresh, you can actually taste what fish tastes like – no lime required to cut raw. We got there too late in the afternoon for snapper, but the firm meatiness of the parrot was a pretty good substitute.  Who can obsess about being obsessive under such conditions? Cyaad me however you want, I know when to take it down a notch, how to take it down a notch, and still shine like a rock star when its time to perform.

It was a perfect afternoon where I got to be with my best friends from two of my three worlds and temporarily forget about work, over the very unique experience of eating at Hellshire. I wonder sometimes about what it will be like when my academic cohort meets up with my other people. 

Like the night before when two of my friends from high school days, Teri and Kimmy, joined Nadia, Allyson, Joe and I for a lyme in the Courtleigh dining room that lasted almost 6 hours. 

Throw in a table (linen, sand, or ply board), some food, libations, and it doesn’t really matter which worlds we all inhabit personally or professionally. All the stereotypes of talking shop all the time, or even intellectual arrogance are of concern sometimes. But then I remember that I try not to socialize with people who do any of those things, and I tend to align myself with people like me, who if we didn’t tell people, they wouldn’t know what we did professionally. For all they know I'm a showgirl. Good friends, the comfort and intimacy of a full belly, as enhanced by the ‘niceness’ of good wine, are among the reasons why from it eat good, mi di deh pon mi teet.

Next up:

Jamaica: Of white linens and street food