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In an interview with the Jamaican Gleaner, I credited Patrick Chung with helping me find the path less traveled for Friendship Estate when I saw an interview he did on the Today Show.
In case you don’t know who he is, Patrick is Jamaican-born and plays with the New England Patriots, in the American Football League. He decided to sit out the 2020 football season because he didn’t want to endanger his family by taking the chance of infecting them with the virus. He put family over anything else.
While he expressed his frustrations about being black in America, he said something that really resonated with me. I am paraphrasing, but he said, “Growing up in Jamaica, it’s all about how you act and how you carry yourself, and that’s what really defines a person. Jamaicans don’t see themselves as anything but Jamaican.”
And I thought, here is another way Jamaicans can lead by example.
This quote is another favorite of mine because I think it embodies the Jamaican spirit so well. We have been able to do what most have not; we have embraced the shared yoke of colonialism as our bond, rejecting what it was meant to do: create irreparable divisions based on class and color.
This post-emancipation ideology stressed individual achievement as the basis for social status, not color. Race is a social construct, not a natural state of being. The fact that racism exists at all means it is useful tosomeone. Racism and bigotry have achieved colonialism’s final solution: divide and suppress sosomeonecan benefit economically and politically.
Yes, the article was heavy and went deep.
So, I thought I would share this recipe that appeared in the 1908 edition of the New York Times.
The recipe is inspired by Jamaica’s classic Planter’s Punch Recipe.
Ingredients – (A measure is usually a cup or 8oz)
One measure of Sour – Lime juice.
Two measures of sweet – Sugar Syrup (Flavored like Cherry or Strawberry if you prefer)
Three measures of Strong – the Rum of YOUR choice.
Four measures of weak – usually means ice or some seltzer or tonic water.
Enjoy your Jamaican Rum Punch … and “Give Thanks.”)
