I grew up in the country where the food was fresh and plentiful and easy to pick and easy to steal.

Many of my friends from Kingston had mango trees in their yard but the difference was we had 4 varieties of mango – Juliana, bombay, east Indian and of course the humble blackie. Then there were crops that we h d that no one in Kingston grew like delicious sugar loaf pineapples which Clovis used when she made pineapple upside cake – still my favorite dessert.

‘ Country food is also rich in what we call Provisions or slave food or sometimes just foo :l. Food like breadfruit, yam, green banana and cassava which is used to make the tasty milk soaked bamee. I love this kind of food – it’s starchy and heavy and bland which means it goes great with foods that are highly seasoned like curried goat, ackee, and codfish, corned pork and mackerel rundown.

I use to watch with awe how much food the men who worked the property could eat. – Sam who was our foreman could eat the most. He was the most of everything. The strongest, the most hard working and the most trustworthy. He was also very private about this food – going off to the stairs by himself almost as though he was afraid someone would eat his food. It made me wonder how many children were in his house when he was growing up.

MY father trusted Sam and on the rare occasion when they went into the capital Sam would stay on the property. Clovis would see to it that we had our dinner and bathed but if we looked out onto the veranda from our bedroom Sam would be right there on the step – quiet, solid and clean. After the long days work he would use the outside pipe to wash off and his skin looked as cool as the terrazo tile under his wide bare feet.

Country food is also different in that you won’t find as many processed foods and rarely will you find imported food- what we call “food from-foreign”. Jamaican – mostly Kingstonians really prize what cannot be found in Jamaica. So buying apples or grapes at the big supermarket is a luxury and not so affordable for most. In the country the supermarkets are dark and small and often owned by Chinese Jamaicans. You won’t find many brightly colored packages from America here. You will find tin mackerel and Anchor butter and cheese from New Zealand and Pear soap from the UK. Mostly you will see shelves stocked with small plastic bags of sugar and flour and rice. You’ll find dried salted cod and rum. You can find lots of rum in the country.

My last name is Lord and once when some brazen boys from the city came looking for my sister they inquired at the local rum bar if any Lords lived up the hill. The slurred answer was “No Lords live up there only ordinary people.”

Country people are very hospitable and I member my parents putting out feasts for our family when they would come to visit from Kingston usually at Christmas or Easter. It was at these times that we would kill a pig or a goat.