Backyard Vegetables

Kingston-- This morning I cut some callaloo and picked pak choi from our backyard. Pretty cool. Living in New York City most of my life I was beginning to think squeezing up the best vegetables at the farmer’s market was the same as actually growing the thing.

I gotta give it to Jamaicans but they take real pride in growing fruits and vegetables in their backyard.  Jamaica is an agrarian society and while the country still imports a lot of vegetables and fruits (American apples) most everyone has a couple of fruit trees or a vegetable patch somewhere on their land. People are quick to tell you which variety of mangoes is in their yard (Julie, East Indian or Bombay) and who gave them the seed to plant their ackee or breadfruit tree.  You can see trees everywhere on the island.

When I lived here as a kid I’d picked mangoes from tree branches hanging onto the sidewalks and just continue to stroll home from school. There wasn’t any fuss from the landowner. It was a quaint and sweet way of existing. But that was a long time ago and that innocent act doesn’t always go down so smoothly nor is that act always so innocent.

For a lot of people growing vegetables and fruits is their only income. If they don’t have any particular professional experience or blue-collar skill they’ll grow their produce and sell them at a market or on the street corner.

So it was with a sense of real accomplishment that I cooked three heads of pak choi and two bundles of callaloo. That I didn’t actually grow them didn’t matter. The man who works at the house did and I’m very supportive of his talents.  He just laughs at me whenever I start talking about the vegetables in the backyard.

I’m the person you invite to dinner and not necessarily the person who’ll prepare the meal. I have a huge family and have been a prep cook/chef, since childhood, to more dinner parties than a lot of folks will ever have the opportunity of rejecting. But I was particularly inspired to cook the callaloo and pak choi because they came from our land. I spent about four hours: washing, rewashing, straining, chopping, dicing, boiling and simmering -- callaloo, pak choi and codfish or saltfish as Jamaicans call it.

I like callaloo (which is like spinach or swiss chard) and pak choi. They’re power foods to me. I don’t know the exact nutritional content of either vegetables but they can only be good because whenever I eat them I seriously end up in the bathroom. They’re the best cleansers.

Callaloo and pak choi are tricky vegetables to cook. The stems of the callaloo have to be peeled off the thin skin that covers it while it's growing and the spoiled leaves of both taken off. Then I washed them in salt and strained. They’re tough foods so I started off briefly cooking them on a high fire then went to a low one. But my mother, the best chef I know, sauntered into the kitchen dropping some words of wisdom. She said callaloo should be steamed but cooking it on a low fire for too long makes it too bitter so cook it on a high fire with the cover and when it’s tender simmer it for a little bit. I used loads of butter then added diced garlic and scotch bonnet pepper, a tiny amount of black pepper and all-purpose seasoning -- the saltfish added the extra flavor.

Normally, callaloo and pak choi are just the side dishes to a meal but my mom and I had it as our main dish. We ate a plate full with two fingers of small bananas.

Maybe it was because it took so long to cook but my mouth watered with the first fork full. There was a gentle, fresh tartness but it was washed away by the fish. As with all good food there’s no rushing -- just patience and appreciation. Great food simply validates life. Mom and I completely cleaned our plates. Only green streaks could be seen against the white background. Our bellies were filled with fiber, iron, potassium and a whole bunch of vitamins. There was no want for desert. I was content.

Salt of the earth was more real than ever -- from soil to table. The food was grown in our backyard and we were nourished by it. A simple act to fill the stomach.

--Connie Aitcheson