Caribbean Food History with Catherine Ross and Lynda-Louise Burrell

“I’m not very good at Caribbean phrases!” laughs Catherine Ross, in her soft Nottingham accent. “But it’s something like: ‘Hell A Top, Hell A Bottom and Hallelujah in the Middle!”

Together with her daughter Lynda-Louise Burrell, Catherine founded Museumand: The National Caribbean History Museum. I went to Catherine’s home in Nottingham to find out more about the museum and to talk about how food fits into Caribbean social history in the UK. They put on a Friday afternoon sweet spread for me that helped tell that story (and also tasted delicious).

The Caribbean phrase Catherine was referring to above was the name of a kind of Jamaican sweet potato pudding cooked with hot coals (what the 'hell' refers to) underneath and on top of a metal container. On her kitchen table was Toto [the sliced loaf cake on the left hand plate], a Caribbean coconut and ginger cake originally cooked by the enslaved in the same way as the sweet potato pudding; using minimal resources in this ingenious way allowed them to cook food with the scant raw materials they had access to. While the cake was cooking in a metal container in the middle, vegetables could also be roasted directly in the coals at the same time. "That's what I love about my history," says Catherine. "When I realise we were at the forefront of so many things I feel ten feet tall! Cos I think, what a good idea to do that."

Also taking pride of place: a Pinch Me Round, or gizzada [the wheel shaped pastry next to the Toto]. "This actually came from Portuguese Jews!" Catherine explains. Portuguese and Spanish Jews, fleeing religious persecution during the Inquisition in the 1500s, sought refuge in Jamaica and brought things like this with them. In Portuguese it's known as a guisada.

Pink On Top [the pink square above the Pinch Me Round] really brightens the table up. it's entirely made of grated coconut, which Catherine remembers not-so-fondly having to prepare by hand for her family of eleven. The Jamaican delicacy Coconut Drops [to the right of the Pink On Top] are, similarly, made almost entirely from the fruit too. "My favourite thing in the world!" Lynda tells me.

On another plate is soft, dense white Hardo Bread, and Bun (or Spiced Bun as it's sold in the UK). The English brought hot cross buns and Caribbean cooks had to try and copy the recipe for their masters. Many Caribbeans eat bun with cheese, though Catherine's heard that some islands do also eat it with fried fish.

When I was first reading about Museumand, I came across an article that Catherine had written for The Voice about Caribbean food traditions. In it, she wrote: "The Caribbean tradition of eating bun with cheese, often American-style processed cheese that tastes nicer than it sounds, comes from Yorkshire-born British colonisers, who liked eating fruit cake with either cheese or butter, probably because it balanced out the sweetness."

Although I technically grew up north of the county border, my family are from Yorkshire, and I grew up eating slices of mild white Wensleydale with fruitcake and sometimes hot cross buns too. The idea of bun and cheese being a product of Yorkshire slave owners has really stuck with me and led me to reflect a lot on how, in the UK, our interrogation of the details of our colonial history is shamefully low. In the episode, Catherine also explains how Jamaican accents and inflections were, in part, influenced by colonisers too. From St Kitts herself, she remembers coming to England aged 7, meeting Jamaican families and being confused by the way they pronounced things - adding an 'h' to words . But in turns out that this particular inflection is prevalent in Derbyshire, and was a clear indication of who had colonised where.

Museumand is a fascinating project. A 'museum without walls', it's a movable vehicle for Catherine and Lynda to reach thousands of people with their exhibitions based around subjects such as black representation in the doll industry, a history of Caribbean funeral traditions in the UK and - my personal favourite - the Edible Exhibition, which took place in a takeaway and saw thousands of visitors being served dishes that the slaves originally ate in the 18th and 19th centuries.

"We try and tell the truth as the truth is," says Lynda, "but in a way that people that don't see your point of view will actually say, 'Even though I don't agree with you, I understand.'"

Listen to the full episode here. You can find out about Museumand's work here and follow them on twitter here and Instagram here.

Hello, World!