Jamaican Food

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Thehistorical study of food and the anthropology of food are recent and growingfields of scholarly inquiry. An understanding of these aspects of life canreveal much about a culture's crop production, economy, preparation methods, festivals, foodways, history, and environmental care and degradation. Thisbeautifully illustrated book by one of the Caribbean's pre-eminent historians, B.W. Higman, sheds new light on food and cultural practices in Jamaica from thetime of the earliest Taino inhabitants through the introduction of differentfoodways by enslaved peoples, to creole adaptations to the fast-food phenomenaof the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The author examines the shift inJamaican food practices over time, from the Tainos' use of bitter cassava to theMaroons' introduction of jerk pork, and the population's love affair with thefruits of the island such as pawpaw, guava, star apple, and avocado pear. Inthis accessible study, Higman traces how endemic animals, delicacies such asthe turtle, ringtail pigeon, black land crab and mountain mullet, barelyretained their popular status into the early twentieth century and are nowalmost completely forgotten, their populations dramatically depleted, oftenendangered. Thetwo main sections of the book deal separately with plants and animals. Plantsare grouped together according to the parts of them used as food: roots, stalksand leaves, fruits and seeds. Generally, all aspects of a particular plant havebeen discussed together and the plant as a whole has been located in itsdominant use. Animals are treated in the same way, putting all of their uses ina single place but grouped into biological families.