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Celebrate The Holiday Season Jamaican Style

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A contagious joie de vivre makes Jamaica a natural choice for holiday season celebrations. This is a country of upbeat festivals, inspired events and delicious cuisine-add a dash of holiday spirit and the recipe becomes irresistible.

Authentic Jamaican Holiday Cuisine:
Dining in Jamaica over the holidays is an unforgettably festive experience filled with treats. A traditional dinner is likely to include the following specialties:

• Breakfast:
  Ackee & Saltfish (recipe below) roasted breadfruit, fried dumplings, boiled green bananas, boiled yam or hardough bread, Cocoa Tea (recipe below).


• Dinner:
  Roast ham, chicken, oxtail or curried goat, accompanied by a sweet yam called yampi.


• Dessert:
  Jamaican fruitcake, made with fruits that are soaked for months in rum or port, with a final dousing at the Christmas table.


• Wash It Down
  Sorrel wine, created from the red fruit of the sorrel plant fermented to a sweetened, dark red-colored drink spiced with ginger, cloves, pimento, and laced with white rum.

Jamaican Holiday Traditions:
Among Jamaica's best known celebrations of Christmas are Grand Market and Jonkonnu. The Grand Market (or Gran' Market) is a community fair that features food, street dancing, crafts and music. Markets all over the island are set up with vendor stalls selling small toys, balloons and sweets of all kinds, including pinda (an African word for peanut) cakes, grater cakes and peppermint sticks.

Traditionally on Christmas Eve, some markets are decorated with streamers, balloons and large accordion-style bells. Local residents dress up in colorful costumes, including bright hats purchased at the Grand Market. This fun event is an irresistible magnet, drawing residents to town for a celebration that continues all day and night.

Jonkonnu is a traditional Christmas celebration in which revelers parade through the streets dressed in dazzling masquerade, continuing a custom brought over from Africa by slaves who were transplanted to Jamaica. Jonkonnu bands include a mix of traditional and modern characters, varying across the island. They include: Cow Head or Horse Head, King, Queen (wearing a veil), Devil, Pitchy-Patchy, Red Indians, Belly Woman (a character dressed to look enormously pregnant), and Policeman, a mock officer of the law to keep the motley crew and crowd in check.

Recipes:

Ackee and Saltfish (Jamaica's national dish)
Preparation Time: 1 hour
Cooking/Baking Time: 12 minutes
Serves/Yields: 6

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. Saltfish (codfish)
1 dozen ackees
1 small onion
1/2 teaspoon of thyme leaves
2 stalks scallion, chopped
1 clove garlic diced finely
1 teaspoon black pepper
3 slices hot scotch bonnet pepper
1 small red sweet pepper
cooking oil

Method:
Soak Saltfish in warm water to taste. After soaking saltfish, place it in cold water and boil.
Clean the ackee. Remove the seeds and all traces of interior red pit from the ackees. Wash ackees five times. Cover and boil until moderately soft. Drain, cover, and put aside.
Pick up (flake) the saltfish and remove all bones. Saut� all dry ingredients in a pan (except black pepper). Add saltfish and the ackees, and turn the fire/stove up slightly. Add black pepper. Pour in to serving plate.

Serving Suggestions:
This can be served with roasted breadfruit, fried dumplings, boiled green bananas, boiled yam, bammie or hardough bread.


Cocoa Tea
A rich, local breakfast drink. In olden times, tiny flour dumplings were boiled in the Cocoa tea, making the drink a complete meal -- the cocoa tea being the drink and the dumplings replacing the bread.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup grated local cocoa stick
2 cups water
1 cup milk (cream, evaporated, powdered, or low-fat)
Sugar to sweeten
Vanilla
Bay leaf
Cinnamon
Nutmeg

Method:
Put water to boil with cinnamon and bay leaf. Boil for about 15 minutes. Grate cocoa stick and add to boiling water; boil for another 10 minutes. Add cream (or evaporated milk, powdered milk, or low-fat milk to reduce calories). Sweeten to taste. Add vanilla. Strain and serve.