Commentary

'Tun caunmeal' by any other name

By TANYA BATSON-SAVAGE, Staff Reporter

A FEW MONTHS ago, I could not find my remote and so ended up watching the food channel. As I watched, there was this woman who was discussing how wonderful polenta was. She gushed how she loved anything with corn, and told their audience that the meal would be worth the effort because it was for a fancy feast, Thanksgiving.

As she poured the polenta from the pack, I couldn't help noticing that it looked an awful lot like cornmeal. In my search for the remote so that I could change the channel ­ not wanting to engage in the strenuous walk of two feet to the TV set ­ I turned away from the TV. The host spoke about how one has to make sure to mix the polenta so that it does not clump, etc. In surprise I turned back to the television. This woman was talking about 'tun cawnmeal'. It just had a fancy name.

I grabbed my phone and called up my friend who is a chef. She confirmed it. Polenta is 'tun cawnmeal', they just make it a little different.

I couldn't believe it. Actually I could. This same chef friend of mine had been a bit tiffed recently, when I laughingly pointed out to her that much of Italian food came out of either poverty or some famine, when the Italians were encouraged to eat as much tomato as possible. She thought I was being sacrilegious by ascribing the famed Italian cuisine as 'poor people food'. She soon realized that I was right.

Now this is not by any means to decry Italian cuisine. I like pasta and all that jazz.

One of the paradoxes of Jamaica, is that as much as we talk about how great we are, as we find any roof top to shout that we are little but tallawah, we have constantly been our worst enemies. Jamaica has systematically gone about making our citizens ashamed of so many of the things that are some of our best assets. Finally we seem to be slowly learning the errors of our ways.

Poor reputation

A large part of that is how we have treated local food. Until recently, local food was treated no better than how we treat Jamaican creole. For the most parts our food have been looked at as what you eat if you can't do better. 'Foreign food a dweet', not local food.

We have been told how fatty ackee and avocado are, and coconut, coconut oil and milk were equally maligned. Relegated to ignominy with the description food, our tubers and bananas received little attention.

The result is that we have not spent sufficient time developing a Jamaican cuisine. How versatile are these products. It is truly amazing what people come up with at events like the Breadfruit Festival. Breadfruit flour seems to have a great flavour.

It's interesting that of late, more and more persons have been exploring the benefits of eating Jamaican.

Our disdain for our own food has allowed us to lose touch with not only our culture but has also greatly hindered our ability to produce our own kind of 'eatings' and sell Jamaica to the world.

Just like how other nations are proud of their food, so too should we be and let everyone know that Jamaican food is among the best in the world.