She placed a bowl of chips on the table to go with our spiced chai tea. I munched a handful, liking the crunchy texture, fruity taste that was still noticeable under the mix of pepper and other spices. My friend said it was jackfruit chips.
I know jackfruit. The orange inner tendrils of the fruit were a regular snack of my childhood in Jamaica. They were only ever eaten when the fruit was ripe. As a jackfruit is enormous, weighing about 10 to 25 kilograms, the fruit was sold in slices in the market or at the roadside stalls. My friend said that in India they ate jackfruit fresh, fried, roasted, stewed, and as a sweet or savory dish. The roasted nut of the jackfruit was delicious she added.
Jackfruit is not native to Jamaica. The fruit was introduced, from India, to the island in the 1780s. So many of the common fruits in Jamaica are originally from elsewhere. In many ways the island, like the rest of the Caribbean, is a primer on ecological colonialism. The fruits were brought there for one reason only – as food for the enslaved.
Mango is another Jamaican fruit that has its origins in India. There are about a thousand varieties in India and some fifty of these made it to the Caribbean. So mango and jackfruit are tied up with the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade and with the British Raj in India. I am used to thinking of these histories as separate and unconnected. But, sea power and British Empire forged their common links.
Tamarind was another favourite childhood snack. The sour taste of the fresh fruit was counteracted by rolling it into a ball and coated in sugar. Tamarind is native to Africa. It has been grown in India and most of South Asia for a millennia. It is evidence of trade routes between Africa and Asia, for millennia, and prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Tamarind was introduced to the Caribbean as food to feed the enslaved. It might have come from Africa or from Asia.
Coconut is not native to the Caribbean. It has its origins in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Coconut was also brought to the Caribbean to feed the enslaved. Ecological colonialism worked the other way too. The Jamaican cherry tree was taken to Asia by the British. The tree is now naturalised in India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Below are ten popular fruits in Jamaica, and their actual origins. Some five of these are from Asia, two are from Africa and three are native to the Caribbean:
- Almond. From Malaysia and East Asia, arrived in Jamaica in 1790s.
- Avocado. Native to tropical Americas and the Caribbean.
- Banana. From West Africa.
- Coconut. From Malaysia, arrived in Jamaica in 1793 with Captain Bligh of Munity on the Bounty fame.
- Guinep. Native to the Caribbean. It is called ackee in Barbados, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. In the rest of the Caribbean, ackee refers to a completely different plant.
- Jackfruit. From India and Malaysia, arrived in Jamaica in 1780s.
- Mango. From India, arrived in Jamaica in 1780s.
- Otaheite apple. From Malaysia and Indonesia, arrived in Jamaica in 1793 with Captain Bligh of Munity on the Bounty fame. It is called Malacca apple in Guyana and Antigua, and Malaba apple in St Vincent and Grenada.
- Pawpaw. Native to Caribbean and tropical Americas.
- Tamarind. From Africa.
I am used to thinking of slavery, and its after-life, in terms of how it shaped the history and cultures of the Americas, including the Caribbean. Now I need to expand that to look at how slavery shaped the ecologies of those places. This goes beyond clear-cutting the forests to create cotton or sugarcane plantations. It now includes the everyday fruits and vegetables that are as common to Jamaica as the sun, sea, and sand.
© Jacqueline L. Scott. You can support the blog here.
Photo credit: The Jamerican Traveler, YouTube.
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