Jack Sprat in the Garden of Eden
By Jody Stump
In the Caribbean, there are islands lost in time. Places so pristine you feel an almost sacred attachment to the land-and yet, they are peopled and even farmed with such an unselfconscious efficiency it makes me marvel at nature running rampant for the benefit of humankind. A few months ago, I walked a path with a curious man who didn’t eat.
He wasn’t starving and he wasn’t sick. He simply believed humans were not designed to dine. So, instead of spending endless hours in the social contrivance of shared meals, he tasted a few morsels of whatever was least modified from its natural state and excused himself from the table.
This man-let’s call him Jack-was 70 years of age and an almost anatomical drawing of bone and cabled sinew. For our walk, he wrapped his loins in a tattered pair of khaki shorts held up with knotted rope and, as we trudged into the rainforest, he carried a thick club of mahogany as his walking stick and probe. What first gave him pause was a small stand of banana trees, fronds poking at every height and stage of development. Did you know a bunch was called a “hand?” Jack said the hand grows down quite naturally toward the ground until “it feels the face of God and looks up to greet it.” He plucked the ripest fruit and shared a bite with me. Then, he grabbed an orange and sucked sweet juice through the skin, tossing it aside when he had had his fill just as the monkeys did, strewing the path with seeds and rotting pulp as mulch.
For dessert, we tasted stringy sugar cane snapped from an errant stalk and munched tongue-stinging ginger wrestled from the ground. Jack rolled cinnamon bark and found nutmegs on the ground. Did you know that when the nutmeg falls from the tree it is wrapped in red threads of mace? A two-fer treat from the Garden of Eden.
Jack and I dined well off the land and, when we returned to our ship for lunch, he was “too full” to eat so I found myself sitting next to a smart and jolly woman I didn’t know but whose lifetime tales sounded familiar. Lunch was an opulent presentation of all the Spice Islands offer-from smoked marlin to flaming bananas. This stranger savored every luxurious bite and as she snatched one last truffle from the centerpiece, I spied Jack approaching. With great tenderness, he kissed her lightly on the cheek and said, “Are you finished, dear? Let’s take a walk.”
Bananas Foster
Serves 4
Some memories are indelible and forever relate a meal to a time and space. Bananas Foster speaks to me of a chilly night in Kenya when I sat cross-legged in front of a stone fireplace at the bush home of “Born Free’s” Joy Adamson. Our ragtag group of students was unexpected but she welcomed us with great grace and good humor, cooking the only thing she had handy-Bananas Foster flamed over a roaring Yule log.
1/2 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup banana liqueur
4 ripe bananas, quartered lengthwise
1/4 cup dark rum
4 scoops vanilla ice cream
1. Stir butter, sugar and cinnamon in a sauté pan until syrupy. Stir in banana liqueur and gently add bananas to brown.
2. Stir in the rum and ignite to burn away the alcohol. Divide bananas among four bowls and add ice cream and caramel sauce.
Jerk Pork, Atkins’ Style
Serves six
“Jerking” is a marinade-and-grill technique harkening back to the Arawak Indians who slathered incendiary spices over wild boar as a preservative. Refined through time, the jerk marinade has become the characteristic base flavor for any Island meat. This recipe cuts sugar but retains the flavor for a great dish with only 3 grams of carbohydrates.
1 large pork tenderloin
3/4 cup olive oil
3 onions, chopped
3 Tbs. minced garlic
2 Tbs. minced ginger
2 Tbs. fresh thyme
1 Jalapeno pepper, minced
2/3 cup all-fruit orange marmalade
2/3 cup all-fruit apricot jam
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
3 Tbs. lemon juice
3 Tbs. balsamic vinegar
1 bag mixed greens
1. Preheat oven to 400-degrees.
2. Puree onions, garlic, pepper, herbs and spices with 1/2 cup of olive oil. Reserve half and use the rest as marinade, adding lemon juice. Soak pork at least an hour.
3. Season with salt and pepper. In an ovenproof skillet, brown 10 minutes in remaining oil and then roast 10 minutes.
4. Puree the reserved mixture. Spoon half over the pork and roast another 5 minutes. Let stand.
5. Whisk the reserved sauce with vinegar and toss with greens. Arrange around the roast.