We Jamaicans love to eat, a meal which I do believe is more reminiscent of our mixture of cultures on our Island, was and still is, Bully Beef and Cabbage with a variety of other foods. For example as a Breakfast meal it could be with fried dumplings or Johnny cakes, which dumplings are also called, or with bread, or even breadfruit, (another food that is known in other Caribbean and Island nations); or as Dinner with Rice or with what we call "food", boiled dumplings, boiled green bananas and potatoes and yellow yams! (not the yams we eat here for Thanksgiving). This Bully Beef (or corn beef as it is also known) was not the Brisket kind, this was from a tin (or can as I've learned to say here).
My fondest memory of this dish was as a lunch prepared by my mom. I was about 11 and half years at the time and there were really serious exams going on at my school. These exams would make or break your dreams to attend one of those really good high schools, meaning if I successfully passed that exam, my parents dream of me attending one of the better high schools for girls would be realised!
I was at school, having completed the first section of the exams, it was lunch time and I felt really horrible because I felt, knew that I had messed up that part of the exam! As I was sitting outside feeling miserable, I saw my mom coming towards me with lunch! I was happy to see her. She reassured me that everything would be OK and then she whipped out her concoction of Bully Beef and Cabbage with white rice, plus a banana for dessert or snack!
That meal have never tasted so good to me, it was what I needed at the time, and mom and I sat and enjoyed the sun and the tropical breeze before I went back inside my classroom to face the rest of the exam!
Though I didn't pass the exam that day, but I did ace it the next year I took it, and it was my last chance at it too!
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