Jamaican men and their love of cooking

[blugiant]

Mi a read a thread wa day and saw where ((pz)) listed a love of cooking as one of the great traits of jamaican men. I couldnt agree more.

Although i have to say i came to this realization late in life, and long after being divorced (my ex tried to keep his love of cooking hidden in hopes it would remain part of my main role as wife).

but still - is there anything more wonderful than a jamaican man telling you how he cooks a particular dish? i don't think so.

so, jcans.com men, talkie truth - unu love cooking and have unu specialty dish, dont? who teach unu fi cook? unu see it as a manly art? come share....

mii grandmaddar, sister, ann sum relatives woo ar professional chefs ann cooks dat woo taught mii

mii learn natt fe tell mii maddar mii cook bettar dan ar cah itt hurt ar feeling cah shi tink shi can reallee cook. neva figgit wen shi wance bake mii wan boxx cake, since mii neva like itt mii bake wan cake fram scratch ann peeps ear more aff fimi cake

da sad ting iss mii cook bettar dan a latt aff oomen ann dem wandar y mii doan nyam fram dem. good ting mii wifee iss a great cook so shi do moas aff da cookinn

still mii doan like mii realitives askinn mii wifee fe invational fe watch superbowl cah mii will be cookinn

da great ting bout cookinn fe oomen is dat dem luv mii food mii use fe gitt a latt bakk inn return

[mountaingal]

This makes me laugh and remember my Grandfather He used to sell jerk pork in mandeville
On friday nights it would be him my uncle who is only 6 years older than me in the kitchen till all hours of the morning ..My grandfather would cut the fatty parts off the pig to throw away my uncle and me would take it and find lean meat from the fat LOL,while the old man was cooking we would be cooking too LOL
As for specialty beef soup ,curry chicken and of course jerk pork to name a few
So unnu saying there are Jamaican men who cant cook?

i've met only one jamaican man who i would say cannot cook - my son-in-law. mi seh, im come up wid a concoction one time - ackee and chicken in a brown stew, holeee im seh is a dish im and some a di guy dem come up wid. all i could think was "what a tragic waste of ackee and chicken, two perfectly good foods that died when forced together".

one of the things i concluded is that the younger generation of men in jamaica are maybe not as into it as the previous generations.

thanks for sharing your story, remo. cooking is something that you have to get good at, imo, and starting early with practice is a good way to go.

i'm curious about how beef soup became your specialty - was it your job to cook Satdeh soup?

[mountaingal]

mg i post comments on cooking from time to time.....

when i travel i alway try and get a suite or flat with a kitchen....i never take hotel rooms if i can help it...Even in KL i was in a 5 star yet i prefered to cook...


I dont think the love of cooking is confined to Jamaicans men....ever hang out with Italian men__???? if a group of guys hang out they cook.....at least the guys i know.....Mostly because this comes from nessity....a week ago a colleague invited us over to his place and cooked Chilli....


I travel to Norway regularly recently the other week a couple of us was invited to a Norwegian guy flat for dinner... He had shot a raindeer... made a meal with sushi starter, and a raindeer for mains..... last year at another time in Norway a english guy from Croydon in London cooked us a curry goat meal... wasnt bad....Speaking of goat... We found an indian resturant in Norway that we regularly go to...we told him we wanted a curry goat for our christmas meal... he sourced the meat... the thing is curry goat is an amazing dish...a number of guys were skeptical but they


A group of us lived in Faroes for 5 months.... we had a guy who loved fishing... we all ended up with frezzer full of frozen cod,slaith, mackrels//// we spent more time discussing cooking that the job....We even had the danish special forces over....

when i lived in Libya, tripoli.. it has some of the best fish in the world look at the map and u will see y... ...every friday a multinational group of us guys, itlainan, me, egyptian, croatian, tunisian would hang out at my flat, watch the film Heat...We would go to the fish market near the former Whelus US base after the morning meeting , buy a bunc of fish. cook friday night dinner together. simple meals, baked potatoes, fresh fish and a salad..We had a Egyptian muslim IT guy who never cooked....his mother and sister looked out for him..When we invited him over, we told him we would be cooking to say he was skeptical is mild..... . We taught him how to make that simple meal... he went home and cooked a meal for his mother and sister ....note Friday is the muslim sunday....

love your stories as always, wahalla. you'd do well in quebec city, which maintains only a sliver of space between civilization and the bush. game meat is practically standard in restos there, i still remember fondly a broth made from either caribou or moose that i had once. so rich and browny-red and satisfying.

i'm glad you helped your muslim friend feel his way into a role traditionally assigned to women, and hope he, his mom and his sis enjoyed the meal he cooked.

it's still slightly paradoxical to me that a jamaican man can be very traditional and see women in a traditional light, yet claim the traditional womanly role of cooking. not complaining, tho

[mountaingal]

not really a BBQ the past few years. but i do do pretty well all the day to day cooking in the house. Wife really only cook for special occasions(christmas and dem tings) Growing up i never saw my father in the kitchen and used to say yes when i grow up when i come home my food muss put in front of me.
when i lived on my own i learned to cook a few things i like and gradually expanded. I like my own cooking so i am happy

seet deh (the bolded part). nuff country man stay so. how you neva rely on girlfriend to step into mommy's role and cook food to put in front of you? what made you decide to move on from tin mackerel and bully beef (can't really call that cooking) and into real cooking so that you more or less do it for your household?

my Canadian step dad never made that transition - to this day the only thing he would claim as his specialty would be grilled cheese sandwich.

what's your signature dish, Rich?

[mountaingal]

my first cooking was running boat at MC..i learn to knead flour

"run boat"


did you know that women don't run boat? i never heard of any. always a man ting. always in the dead of night. as a pickney when i heard my older male cousins talk about run boat, it felt like they were engaging in some mystical activity only for the chosen few.

ETA: how that term come about, anyway?

[Peasie]

On UWI campus back in the day the men always run boat around dinner time especially when dem grant run out. Trinis always did that on a weekend.

[Tropicana]

Yes for sure this is in their favour. Many Jamaican men can cook. Some can't even bwile water fe mek tea though.

[mountaingal]

mii grandmaddar, sister, ann sum relatives woo ar professional chefs ann cooks dat woo taught mii

mii learn natt fe tell mii maddar mii cook bettar dan ar cah itt hurt ar feeling cah shi tink shi can reallee cook. neva figgit wen shi wance bake mii wan boxx cake, since mii neva like itt mii bake wan cake fram scratch ann peeps ear more aff fimi cake

da sad ting iss mii cook bettar dan a latt aff oomen ann dem wandar y mii doan nyam fram dem. good ting mii wifee iss a great cook so shi do moas aff da cookinn

still mii doan like mii realitives askinn mii wifee fe invational fe watch superbowl cah mii will be cookinn

da great ting bout cookinn fe oomen is dat dem luv mii food mii use fe gitt a latt bakk inn return

so u know the score, eeh blu -- cooking is the way to a woman's heart. in oyinbo culture i think is the other way round

but i don't understand why you wouldnt eat from a woman even if you cook better than her. just because you cook better don't automatically mean she cook bad? or is this another man ting?

[mountaingal]

the problem with barbeque is the clean up....

and the underdone meat... oy. i don't have the patience to be a good bbqer.

[mountaingal]

Yes for sure this is in their favour. Many Jamaican men can cook. Some can't even bwile water fe mek tea though.

Tropi, waagwaan? did your dad throw down in the kitchen, too? your ex? and how about your son - is he learning to do more than just KD and ramen noodles (staple food of students), as part of his growth into manhood?

[Wahalla]

love your stories as always, wahalla. you'd do well in quebec city, which maintains only a sliver of space between civilization and the bush. game meat is practically standard in restos there, i still remember fondly a broth made from either caribou or moose that i had once. so rich and browny-red and satisfying.

i'm glad you helped your muslim friend feel his way into a role traditionally assigned to women, and hope he, his mom and his sis enjoyed the meal he cooked.

it's still slightly paradoxical to me that a jamaican man can be very traditional and see women in a traditional light, yet claim the traditional womanly role of cooking. not complaining, tho

I am still trying to get a whale meal... Had whale sushi... But not as a main....

the muslim guy swore he would cook after wards .. we all told him the pleasure of cooking....I told him the concept of men "running a boat" ... he told us that his sister amd mother enjoyed the meal... u had me thinking as usual...

That guy from Croydon (he looks like the only gay in the village from Little Britain) came origianlly from Dorset..his parent moved to London his fatehr got an allotment to grow vegtables...He was surrounded by old Jamaican men...When the man arrived they help clear the over growth... lent him tools, took him to the betting shop, cricket and taught him dominos jamaican style.....They also cooked... My friend used the term "run boat"....His father never cooked and in the end started cooking at home.......The reason we had the curry goat was he wanted to prove to me he could do it...so he went to Brixton market got half a goat, flew it over to norway....used a slow cooker for 8 hours ....it didnt have enough skotch bonnet though...


The idea that muslim guys role is so call traditional is a myth... in Mauretania we had a Tunisian cadre running our warehouse... the company that paid us did want us to eat out i wont give the HSE reason that gave that justification.. The company set up the worst resturant in the world.... So the Tunsians went to the fishmarket and we had a fish barbeque a week...We began to have steaks brought in and these guys refused to let us non tunisian cook.......

I have had meals cooked in the saudi desert by men... a young camel barbeque....meals...cooked on ships by indonesia chefs, barbeques on the beaches cooked by libyan men who were not too shabby proving they were regular cooks..

[mountaingal]

Here's a definition of running a boat i found online, part of someone's reminiscences http://www.jamaican-recipes.com/Food...atcooking.html:

Now the way it works when we ‘run boat’ is each man contributes whatever cash in order that the boat can ‘sail’ (cook). For example, if ten men contribute one hundred dollars each, the ‘boat’ has enough money to feed everyone with a variety of foods which includes ‘the salting’ (canned fish, beef, chicken, cooked vegetable).

When the food is ready, the cook shares the food according to the amount of money each man contributes; less money, less food. And, of course, women eat free when they turn-up at the cooking site…Yah Mon!


As some‘boats’ are ‘run’ outside in the bushes in the rural areas of Jamaica, the cooking utensils used in run-a-boat cooking vary from conventional types to the more creative varieties: dasheen leaves, banana leaves, coconut bowls and cups, coconut oil cans, butter pans, among other things.

When a ‘boat’ is ‘run’ in a house, however, the cooking takes on the regular conventional cooking methods which involve the regular rules of Jamaican cooking; also, fewer people are involved in the‘boat. ‘

[mountaingal]

[mountaingal]

[mountaingal]