As we were boogying (try spelling that without setting off spell check!) to reggae music this morning, we discovered that our teenager did not know anything at all about Rastafari, though she has long enjoyed the music of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. It seemed wrong to me that my kid didn't know about rastafari, since I spent several of my favorite years living that life with some really great people I met in the Caribbean. SO, we got on the computer and looked it up. My kid learned a lot. I learned a little, and had lots of fond memories jogged.
The patois... oh how I miss that wonderful dialect. In my surfing I found this site with childrens' stories read aloud in Jamaican Patois. This is going to really help me write some stories in that dialect... (That's the plan, at least!)
One of the other things I really, really loved about the rasta lifestyle was the food. Ital they call it. I was the healthiest I have ever been when I lived on that food. It is basically a natural, unprocessed diet full of fresh, local fruit and vegetables. The people I knew did not eat meat or dairy, but they did occassionally eat fish and eggs. They cooked in clay pots they called yabbas and used wooden utensils except for the knives. We had bowls made of coconut shells and little spoons also made of coconut shells. It was like a ceremony when we ate, and every meal was prefaced by a quick "Tanks an' praises" directed to Jah.
The primary focus of the days activities would generally revolve around the meal. First the ingredients would be gathered. If the breadfruit was in season, that would be the base for the meal. Otherwise, it usually started with lentils. Cooking would be done over an open fire with a careful arrangement of stones which supported a flat metal top from a 55 gallon drum. On top of this sat the yabba.
Here is the recipe for a basic Ital Stew:
Lentils - about 1 1/2 cups dried
1 Onion - or 4 spring onions - chopped
Bell Pepper - chopped
1 - 2 whole scotch bonnet peppers (use whole and remove before eating)
Carrot - grated
Coconut Milk (Scrape or grate all meat from a mature coconut, soak in water 10-15 Minutes then squeeze all the liquid into the stew.)
fresh thyme
fresh basil
fresh bay leaves (2 - 3)
Pour all into Yabba and cook over fire till lentils and vegetables are fully cooked.
I had a neighbor who was a really good ital cook. He loved to cook for my stuffy white friends, and would make a great production of the whole meal. The one great exception was that he used my stove instead of the open fire outside. One night we had twice the number of people we had planned for, and I went into the kitchen and asked him, "What should we do?" His reply was, "Not to worry, mon," as he reached over and dropped another little scotch bonnet pepper into the pot...
The patois... oh how I miss that wonderful dialect. In my surfing I found this site with childrens' stories read aloud in Jamaican Patois. This is going to really help me write some stories in that dialect... (That's the plan, at least!)
One of the other things I really, really loved about the rasta lifestyle was the food. Ital they call it. I was the healthiest I have ever been when I lived on that food. It is basically a natural, unprocessed diet full of fresh, local fruit and vegetables. The people I knew did not eat meat or dairy, but they did occassionally eat fish and eggs. They cooked in clay pots they called yabbas and used wooden utensils except for the knives. We had bowls made of coconut shells and little spoons also made of coconut shells. It was like a ceremony when we ate, and every meal was prefaced by a quick "Tanks an' praises" directed to Jah.
The primary focus of the days activities would generally revolve around the meal. First the ingredients would be gathered. If the breadfruit was in season, that would be the base for the meal. Otherwise, it usually started with lentils. Cooking would be done over an open fire with a careful arrangement of stones which supported a flat metal top from a 55 gallon drum. On top of this sat the yabba.
Here is the recipe for a basic Ital Stew:
Lentils - about 1 1/2 cups dried
1 Onion - or 4 spring onions - chopped
Bell Pepper - chopped
1 - 2 whole scotch bonnet peppers (use whole and remove before eating)
Carrot - grated
Coconut Milk (Scrape or grate all meat from a mature coconut, soak in water 10-15 Minutes then squeeze all the liquid into the stew.)
fresh thyme
fresh basil
fresh bay leaves (2 - 3)
Pour all into Yabba and cook over fire till lentils and vegetables are fully cooked.
I had a neighbor who was a really good ital cook. He loved to cook for my stuffy white friends, and would make a great production of the whole meal. The one great exception was that he used my stove instead of the open fire outside. One night we had twice the number of people we had planned for, and I went into the kitchen and asked him, "What should we do?" His reply was, "Not to worry, mon," as he reached over and dropped another little scotch bonnet pepper into the pot...