Sylvia Wynter's Dream

There was a fried breakfast food my grand-aunt made the last time I saw her 15 years ago. It was savoury, crispy, spicy and all-around delicious. I remember my excitement as a child eating it, and when I hear her name in conversation I immediately link that feeling to her very first visit. I remember asking her, “What’s in it?” that morning, but in my memory her response is lost. At 9 years old, I likely didn’t care enough to write it down or even listen. But, every few years I get a craving for it, but without a name for it or an ingredient list to reference, it’s been hard to ever get. Was it a meat fritter? Spicy pancakes?

Asking relatives is no use either, their answer is always something else more culturally obvious like ‘saltfish fritter with extra scotch bonnet pepper’. Tried that; it’s not that. I’d ask her myself if I could, but she’s no longer with us, and I now must depend on mine and the memory of others’ to recover this part of my childhood somehow. Loss of this small something, a small breakfast recipe, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth when thinking about lost ones in my family. This loss of a recipe represents the loss of a piece of a family member, who had greater significance than just being good at making this particular thing. It feels like a loss when something like this could have been a staple at breakfast for me, each day reminding myself of all the good she left me with. But without the recipe, I have only the memory, which fades each day and grows more unreliable each time.

Loss of a recipe blankets the loss of closeness to family history, the events that led these recipes to be discovered, the people involved, the stories surrounding it, the history behind the ingredients, the recipes tangled in other recipes… Once you’ve lost one, you’ve lost another. Loss of a recipe, such as losing and forgetting the roots in which the ‘why’ came from, distorts the efforts of past generations. The first person to discover the healing benefits of ‘leaf of life’ to help cure a loved one; the first few people that spoke up about the positive effects of marijuana usage; the first few people that figured out a way to ease stomach aches before understanding what stomach aches really were. These people had a story each, and from their story and interactions with the world around them, their family and friends included, these recipes have been passed down and passed around the Caribbean; a cultural landmark in the region for eternity.

To forget recipes such as those that we use to heal each other, alternative or traditional medicine in the Caribbean, is to unintentionally forget these efforts. Without these recipes, what can spark interest or curiosity anymore? It interferes with the cultural identity and experience of the youth that grows up without this connection to their own culture, forced to find new things and new recipes to link to their culture. This isn’t a particularly bad outcome, however it disjoints the connection between generations. In the youth’s attempts to forge connection with their culture, we’ve seen new recipes reemerged with new names and new appearances, which can seem to older generations as an attempt to actually distance themselves from the culture.

 Why does your ‘Christmas Cake’ recipe have craisins and walnuts in it?! Why are you calling your ‘saltfish fritter’ a ‘savoury codfish pancake’?!

It can be received as a lack of understanding or respect to those that do remember the recipes, the ones that have their own family history and experiences wrapped all in it. In trying to reconnect, the youth may have a lack of confidence when trying to rediscover, unsureness is trying to discern fact from myth. Several recipes can exist for similar things, but which recipe is the one. The one that made my ears perk up at 9 years old because it was so flavourful and new. Who do we speak to when these recipes are lost, and the ones who showed them to you are also lost? It results in this effect of trying to recreate things, and distorting it along the way. Each distortion leads it further away from the true recipe, making it a whole other thing entirely. With that, we’ve lost the story and a part of our culture and a part of our identity.