Emancipate Ourselves From Food Slavery Celebrating Culinary Traditions as Part of Our Freedom
As the nation commemorates Emancipation Day, author and seniorpreneur Miriam Samuel, is highlighting the contributions of enslaved people to our unique food history.
Born 100 years after the abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean islands, Mrs Samuel, affectionately known as Grandma Mirie, shares in her book “Mirie’s Magic Recipe: Loving, Leading, Legacy,” how her family survived food shortages during World War II by relying on the land. She describes how as a young child she learned about crop rotation, foraging, bartering and creatively combining ingredients to help feed her younger siblings.
Mirie’s strong connection to the land is manifested in her creation of over 90 agri-products that offer a sense of nostalgia through their flavors, aromas and medicinal properties. These include breads, jams and jellies, confectionery, wines, teas, essential oils and capsules.
To commemorate Emancipation Day, Grandma Mirie will repurpose Antigua and Barbuda’s national dish, pepperpot and fungee, using produce from her garden.
Her version of this simple one-pot meal will include welks, cockles as well as widdy widdy bush which is now considered a weed, but was supplemental food for slaves, especially during times of drought and economic hardship.
During the long strike of sugar workers in 1951, Father of the Nation, V.C. Bird, is famously reported to have said that until workers received a pay raise, “We will eat cockles and the widdy widdy bush. We will drink pond water.”
“Our ancestors experienced severe food hardship but learned how to improvise. They had the strength to not only hold on to their cultural traditions, but they persisted by creating new food habits to survive. I want us to keep these traditions alive as part of our celebration of freedom,” said Samuel.
Mirie explained that slave owners provided weekly rations of corn meal, lard, corned meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour. Slaves supplemented these ingredients by farming, foraging or fishing. They also combined their knowledge of West-Central African cooking methods with techniques borrowed from native Americans and Europeans,” Samuel said.
Grandma Mirie’s version of pepperpot and fungee will reflect what a 19th century slave diet would look like, with a mélange of vegetables, meat, seafood and herbs that were used during that period. She will offer the public a FREE tasting at Gloria’s Supermarket on Wednesday July 31st from 11am – 1pm. Her book and a range of her agri-products will also be on sale.
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