Caribbean Beat — March/April 2018 (#150)

candy, which we call monkey meat. So I
look at this candy, the coconut and molasses,
and I had a picture of an old Gullah
lady with a tray of candies. One of them
was the peanut candy [nutcake] and the
other was the coconut molasses candy. I
was like, wow, this is amazing! That made
my heart sing. We still see the bene candies
— we call them bene cookies — but
the other old candies, we don’t see them.
Did you get the recipes from here to take
back?
Yes, I learned the basics of how to make it
from Trinidad. I heard they do it in West
Africa, too. This is a candy that is traditional,
you know, New World traditional.
To see the similarities of how we do those
candies was fascinating.
Toolum, also known as monkey meat
Ben Dennis writes: “There was a street candy called monkey meat here in
Charleston, sold by Gullah Geechee ladies during the colonial period and up until
the early 1960s. It’s not seen much anymore, unlike in T&T, where toolum is still
common. The addition of lemon peel is the only difference I’ve noticed in the recipes,
but I’m sure each cook adds different small different touches to their recipe.”
1 cup finely grated coconut
4 tbs molasses
2 tsp grated or finely chopped ginger
¼ tsp dried orange peel, chopped or grated
¼ tsp dried lemon peel
²⁄ ³ cup brown sugar
Place sugar in a small pot and let it liquefy over low heat. Then add grated
coconut and molasses. Mix thoroughly, then add the ginger and orange peel. Stir
over a low fire until the mixture leaves the side of the pot — make sure it doesn’t
burn. Drop spoonsful of the mixture onto a greased dish or pan. Let it cool just a
little, and form into balls. Let it harden and chill just a bit.
Were you always this passionate about
your roots, or is this something that came up as you got older?
I had the roots set into me, but it wasn’t something that was
really talked about. I was always into history, and particularly
black history. You’re born into it, but it took people from
the outside to make me realise what we had. When I got to
St Thomas in 2004, that was when it really hit me. St Thomas
is full of people from Haiti, Jamaica, and St Kitts, and I realised
that a lot of people there knew about our culture.
What are some of the similarities between Caribbean food and
what you are used to in South Carolina?
The one-pot cooking, the slow cooking of meats, the barbecuing
and smoking of meats, the seafood, the love for fish, the greens
and the okra — that right there, that’s Africa.
It seems that okra is the common thread among black people,
isn’t it?
I would say that’s our mother plant. We love okra, its part of
our heritage and part of our culture. To me, that’s one of the
connectors.
I once saw on television where Andrew Zimmern on his programme
Bizarre Foods went into a Gullah community and they
were eating squirrels. Is that something that happens still?
Back home, sometimes you see them skinning a big deer, you
go to what we call the Sea Islands and you will still see the deer
being skinned and squirrels being prepared. Even in the city, in
some of the old black communities, you see it. It’s still part of the
culture, but it’s dying. The younger generation doesn’t want that,
they want it easy.
What about your media side? Are you going to be doing shows
on the food channels?
I have appeared on Top Chef [on cable channel Bravo], but as a
guest talking about the culture of food. TV is not my big thing,
unless I can spread the word of culture, unless I can share with
other black chefs who are passionate about the diaspora. TV can
sometimes put you in a bad light — sometimes the way they edit
you can show you in a light that makes you look ignorant. I would
do TV again, but it has to be about culture and food.
“People have been doing ‘soul
food’ — I don’t like that term. We
have to do African diaspora food,
‘culture food’”
Is it important for more black chefs to come forward throughout
the diaspora and tell these stories?
Coming up as chefs, we only saw one side. People have been
doing “soul food” — I don’t like that term. We have to do African
diaspora food, “culture food.” When you learn about the culture
ways and get these old recipes and old ingredients, it inspires
you. It would be great to see more chefs dig into this culture —
don’t be ashamed!
We call it brown food, because it’s brown stews and gravies,
but you can sexy it up . . . We have to get out of this mindset of
what white chefs are doing. You know what they’re going to do?
They’re going to take our food and make it seem like they discovered
something. We have to reclaim our foodways, reclaim
our culture. n
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