- NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 25/Jul 05:51

To market, to market

WAYNE KUBLALSINGH I HARBOUR a deep resentment towards men who cannot cook. There is one husband calling, “Glorie! Glorie! The food ready?” There is another, “Radha, the choka have too much pepper!” And another, “Ent I tell you to make the shrimp pasta today? Everyday is saltfish, saltfish so?” And there is Ramraj, always lounging about the pot, impatiently petting his belly, always hungry. And Miss Kissember’s son, boasting, “Me? Not me and kitchen bredda. Tha’ is ’oman thing!” These papesy men. Can’t boil an egg, can’t stir a pot, can’t roast a biganne to save their lives. I grew up in my grandmother’s and mother’s kitchens. I could still see my grandmother, squatting on the leepayed floor, sitting on a peerah beside her chulha. I could see the round cup of her palm wiping the last seasoning from the round of her stone pestle. I still catch the fragrance of her curried fry-dry, rice and dhal. And her mustard-soaked mango-anchar, stored in large sweetie jars. Although she owned a kerosene stove, she preferred to squat beside her chula and chop up and cook. The old Indian way. To cook, to learn to cook, you are best served growing up in someone’s kitchen. And my mother took me to market. The San Fernando and Marabella markets. At 13, I was already going off alone, by taxi, to do market. Learning to buy. To test ochros, by nipping off their tips. To spot pumpkin, that did not spring a pond in your pot, but which cooked rich, sweet and thick. To spot tannia, eddoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, as old as my grandfather’s head. And to trade. Grow up your child in the market and your child becomes a grown-up, a market shopper, a practical economist. Our hospitals have become institutional treadmills. The more patients leave, the more flood in. This is partly because of our nation’s poor lifestyle choices, eating habits. The more hospitals heal, the more we indulge. Mass obesity! Processed sugars, preservatives, food colouring, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, emulsifying agents, and artificial sweeteners and flavours. Putting plaster upon plaster cannot solve these ills. Plaster upon plaster will do no more than prolong morbidity and mortality into the unforeseeable future. The health system requires a series of committed interventions. Revolutions in primary school health education, horticulture, crop and tool technologies, bio-science, food distribution. And food and drink choices. One such intervention is to redirect our population towards market-buying. Educate the populace, propagandise the benefits of market-buying. The historical town markets, most of which I have shopped at, Mayaro, San Fernando, Marabella, Couva, Chaguanas, Port of Spain, Tunapuna, Arima are bedrocks of our nation’s health, well-being and economic growth. It is possible to plan and devise a diet, a healthy and nutritious meal plan, using local market produce almost entirely. Look, there is the seasoning lady. Podena/oregano, Spanish thyme, celery, mint, rosemary, pimento, parsley. And there is the greens lady, lettuce and watercress. Wash them clean, in water with a little vinegar, seal them tight in a used yogurt, peanut, ice cream tub. And there, the spice man. Clove, cinnamon, ginger, mauby bark, sea moss, saffron, with little bags of limes or lemons. Inflammatory stomach? Acidity? Gastrointestinal disease? Ten sprigs of clove, a cinnamon stick, an inch of ginger, added to saffron periodically, to make a night-time tea. Soak your sea moss in a glass bowl, squeeze a lime in it, soak overnight, then boil for five minutes. It quickly converts into a gel. Store in the fridge and stir a tablespoon each day in your soups, smoothies, etc: it’s a probiotic. And there is the fruit lady. Soursop (expensive), pawpaws, pineapples, cantaloupe, melons, oranges, avocados, mangoes, bananas of all kinds. And sometimes, when in season, cachima, rambutan, peewah, pommeracs, sapodillas, jackfruit, balata, mamisipote, custard apple, pommecythere, cocorite, chenette, African sea coconut. Here is your pharmacy of preventative, and for many illnesses, curative medicine. Hospital and mainstreet pharmacy have their roles; but so do public markets. And did you see the coconut oil lady? And the fish market? Listen, Mrs Glorie’s pathetic husband. Don’t pretend you cannot shop or cook. Go to the fish market, the coconut oil lady. Buy a pound of sardines, cheapest fish, swish swash, scale each. Snip snap, cut off the head and guts. Lave in some flour. Drop in your hot pot of coconut oil. Add your lime juice and salt after. Boil a breadfruit, skin and drop the cassava in water, or sweet potato or eddoes or plantain or yam. Add a little salt. There you have a plate, fry-dry, provision, plantains. Wash and chop up watercress, cucumber, half-ripe mangoes, pineapples for a salad. One hundred per cent local, ital, nutritious. The vendors at the Arima market, where I buy the most, still have to huddle under tarpaulins when it rains. Our public markets must be prioritised to become a pivotal part of our commercial food web. And, put up a half of pot of water to boil. Wash and chop up a piece of pumpkin, ochros, eddoes, sweet potatoes, half an inch of ginger. Drop into the pot, and add a teaspoon of roucou, a congo pepper to swim, a slab of fish first seasoned with podena, Spanish thyme, chadon beni. Add salt and black pepper to taste. All man Jack must learn to cook. From early. Become free. Cook for Glorie. The post To market, to market appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.