While you weren't looking (and I wasn't updating the blog) I hopped a Southwest Airlines flight to Florida!
Yup, portions of the family had a mini-reunion at my grandparents' retirement home last week, and I was there with bells and streamers on. Or pants and sweaters. It was COLD in Florida!
I can hear my Chicagoan father laughing at my wussiness right now. 45 degrees feels a lot colder in the land of citrus and swamps, you know.
While we were all there, my father, aunt and I bought nutritional shakes to fatten my grandfather up. This is not a problem I have.
We also spent a good bit of time in their IMMENSE retirement community getting lost and dodging slowly moving hordes of walker- and cane-bearing elderly on their way to mahjong or poker or Shabbat services.
I couldn't help thinking of this picture of ours each time I saw the lines of mobility scooters or walkers parked in the long, meandering hallways.
My grandparents originally retired down to South Florida in 1983, and the neighborhood they chose has changed a bit since then. In the '80s, there were lots and lots of little New York-style Jewish delis, selling bagels and smoky whitefish salad and lox and chopped liver. Now there are few of those left. Lots of these places have become Jamaican, Haitian, and Caribbean eateries.
Actual Jamaican food after the jump...
We found more evidence of the area's changing demographics at the local Wal-Mart (don't give me any crap - we had a LONG shopping list).
With all this Jamaican food around, how could we leave without eating a bunch of it? One mid-afternoon, between running our many and varied errands, my father and I stopped into a nice-looking cafeteria-style Jamaican restaurant called Hot Pot. (I should warn you that a beat-heavy Jamaican tune about curry goat and chicken stew will start automatically playing when you load the site; you might want to turn your speakers down. Don't turn them off, because the song is well worth enjoying.)
We stepped in, and I quickly learned just how little I know about Jamaican food. Turns out there's a lot more to it than patties and jerk chicken.
I mean, some of it I could sort of guess from the name (stew chicken seems pretty self-evident), but... Bammy? Festival? Ackee?
Dad and I started out with an Escoveich Fish and a side spicy beef patty. I had a guess on what Escoveich would be, based on how similar it sounds to escabeche, the vinegary mixed onion/carrot/jalapeno pickle found in lots of Mexican joints around Austin. (Some websites insist the name has to do with ceviche, the raw fish preparation found in a lot of Latin America, but I can't see how that could be possible given the escoveich is fried and much more of a pickle.)
Turns out yeah, escoveich and escabeche aren't just homonyms. Escoveich is a fried fish which is then marinated in a vinegary onion mixture. In true Jamaican style, it's served with a side of rice and peas, a few fried sweet plantains, and a cabbage and carrot slaw.
Yes please! I'm always excited to be served a whole fish. I think this one was a little angry at us.
Not only did he have sharp teeth, he also was possessed of many tiny bones. Regardless, he was delicious - the strong sour taste of the onion pickle punched up the mild fish, and the tender peas and rice, sweet soft plantains, and crunchy slaw added wonderful flavor and texture notes. It was all in all a very satisfying dish.
The patty I ordered on the side looks enormous, but was quite thin. I ate half of it and saved the rest for dinner.
I'm not sure if this particular patty was dyed bright yellow by turmeric or egg yolks; apparently both of those are common. The flaky crust was filled with ground beef in a spicy gravy. In fact, everything together was so spicy that I didn't realize just how hot the patty was until I ate it by itself later.
Also spicy was my Joose-Mon Ginger Beer, a non-alcoholic ginger brew made nearby in Coral Gables, Florida. This was the hottest ginger beer I've ever had, and I know I'll want a bottle the next time I have a stomachache. Too bad I haven't found them after 3 minutes of googling - how am I supposed to order a case?
After sharing this entree, Dad was still pretty hungry and I was a bit peckish. He went up and ordered a breakfast dish called ackee and saltfish.
After a few minutes, this arrived.
Having no idea what Ackee was, I was thoroughly confused by this dish. We couldn't figure out if Ackee meant the dumplings (no - there was one light yam and one dense flour), or the boiled green banana (no). It obviously didn't mean the plantains. And we knew where the saltfish porridge was.
I had to know. So I went up to the helpful Jamaican lady behind the counter and asked "What's in the ackee?" She looked at me, confused, and said "ackee." I said "Right, I know we got ackee, but what's IN the ackee?" Now totally mystified by this crazy girl, she looked at me and said "saltfish?"
I went back to the table and looked it up. Turns out, not for the first time, I'm uninformed. Ackee is the yellow fruit you see there in the saltfish porridge. It's related to lychee and longan, and is native to West Africa. According to Wikipedia, it's the national fruit of Jamaica, and ackee and saltfish is the national dish! I'm sure they'd entertain nominations of curry goat or oxtail.
Ackee, it turns out, is delicious. It's very soft without falling apart. The texture is almost like scrambled eggs and the flavor is reminiscent of bamboo shoots.
And it can be imported! If you want to cook ackee at home, here's a great looking recipe for ackee and saltfish.
The more I learn about food, the more I find out there is to know. Thanks to Hot Pot Jamaican Restaurant for teaching and feeding me (and to Dad for picking up the tab)!
Hot Pot Jamaican Restaurant (love the music!) is at 1166 N. State Road 7 in Lauderhill, FL. 954.797.7414.
