Friday, January 13, 2006
Jerk...and Boston Bay
So now that my neighbourhood 7-11 in Arlington Virginia is selling something called the Jerk Hot-Dog, i feel free to talk about the roots of Jerk. When you're a kid, most everything is surreal. Christmas, hot chocolate, the Tooth Fairy, and so on. When you're new to the world, and still learning the rules, realness is a much looser concept. You wake up in the morning, and whatever happens that day, is real.
Within the first few years of my life, I watched a house burn down, learned about Batman, drank Happy Pop, got on planes, and ended up somewhere elses, lived in languages I didn't understand, became a magician, collected skulls, and learned to swim. I slept for a year in an upper bunkbed, and several times rolled confidently out of it, sometimes floated effortlessly out the window, flew out across the landscape, and sometimes bounced resoundingly, painfully, off the thin-carpetted concrete floor. Only years later did I realize that the distinction between success and failure, between exuberance and pain, was actually a distinction between dreams and reality. I think that achieving this level of discernment, a relatively firm grip on what truths we hold to be self-evident, reality, as it were, is what's generally classified as "growing up".
But even then, four years young, Jerk Pork was real. As real as beaches. Boston Bay, to be specific. The two were intrinsically connected. We were living in Jamaica at the time. I had a few floating memories of life before Jamaica, but they weren't particularly explicit or credible. I remembered visiting camels in the snow, for example. A past life. Specific beaches had specific actions, experiences associated with them. At Doctor Beach, I'd step on urchins. Hellshire beach was always associated with beach umbrellas and picnic baskets. Negril had sea grapes and sea almonds, we'd split the latter open with a machete against a rock, delicately edge out the thin crescent of nut within. Half Moon Bay was an abandoned yacht, grounded on the reef, and snorkelling. Frenchman's Cove was a confluence, of stream and sea, flow and waves, fresh water and sea.
And Boston Bay was Jerk Pork. And vice versa. I don't remember ever having one without the other. Boston Bay was also the beach with the highest waves, in my memory - along most parts of the island's shoreline, the ocean lapped, curled and frothed, gently churned up delicate shells, pink sunsets, but at Boston Bay, the waves often felt higher, stronger, than I was. Worthy adversaries, that would sometimes knock me down, salt blinding my eyes, spitting sand, water rolling tumbling over me. The beach sloped up into a rampart of cliffs, sharp bubble curls of black volcanic rock that cut into my fingers, bit through my plastic flipflops, when I tried to climb them. Above the cliffs, a crest of green, arching away in both directions, encompassing the bay, the sandy froth of the beach fading into a Caribbean blue, water hazing grey against the horizon, the sky always a hot faded blue-white, in my memory.
But before we walked down to the beach, we always stopped to get some jerk pork. I think at the beginning, there was just one jerk pit, a square 10x10 foot plane of hot coals, ashed-over charcoal, smoke wifting up, heat radiating, blackened bones of branches splayed within the crumbling embers, the grey-white feathery dust. The pit was covered, a roof of rusting corrugated iron braced across hewn branches, against rainy days. The meat cooked on spits, above the heat. Jerk pork, and jerk chicken. Men tended the fire, the meat, shirtless, scruffed faces, obeying sacred rites, of when to rake the coals, or baste the meat, or through fresh wood in, or when to take the hungry audience's money. Others stood around, boys and younger children on the peripheries. I'm sure there was conversation, but I don't remember any dialogue. In Jamaica, banter was inherent. Not necessarily noticeable, or memorable.
We slipped in, my sister and I, white as we were, effortlessly, everywhere, it seemed. Maybe because we always had that child's gleam of awe, and natural acceptance, of things as they were. And talked patois like locals. Jamaica's a perfect place to raise a child. Or at least, was at the time. We could wander anywhere, talk to anyone, and get nothing but charm and respect, affectionate conversation. I didn't think the world could be any other way, until we moved away.
I think the Jerk pork came wrapped in a newspaper. The Daily Gleaner, of course. There was but one newspaper, in Jamaica. The comics page had Tarzan, and this friendly protean blob of blackness, that could magically transform itself into whatever shape was most likely to resolve the issue of the day. Carousel, pony, tiger, airplane, whatever. To the joy of the children. You knew that it was him, because whatever form he changed into, he kept his eyes, and happy smile. America might have Richie Rich, but Jamaica had whatever the hell this character was called. It might quite honestly have been called Blackie. I'd google the topic, but that would knock me off-track, and preclude my finishing this story.
Which is about Jerk Pork. Although I usually chose Jerk Chicken. We'd walk down to the beach, unwrap the package, and this hot spiced waft of fumes would hit me in the face. The chicken was painfully hot, suffused with spice, so much so that if I touched your fingers to your eyes, after eating, it would make me cry. So hot that it seared my lips, left a remnant taint itching my mouth for hours after. But sweet despite that. I think that my parents peeled off the skin. The meat was tender, moist, intense.
For some reason, we never had plates, and somehow always, it seemed, I dropped my chicken in the sand. Which required walking out of the shade of the cliffs to the edge of the water, to rinse the meat in the waves. A few grains of sand would still adhere, gritting between my teeth, but in my memory, it wasn't really Jerk until I'd dipped it into the sea, diluted the spice-bite of the meat with the salt of the ocean....
Within the first few years of my life, I watched a house burn down, learned about Batman, drank Happy Pop, got on planes, and ended up somewhere elses, lived in languages I didn't understand, became a magician, collected skulls, and learned to swim. I slept for a year in an upper bunkbed, and several times rolled confidently out of it, sometimes floated effortlessly out the window, flew out across the landscape, and sometimes bounced resoundingly, painfully, off the thin-carpetted concrete floor. Only years later did I realize that the distinction between success and failure, between exuberance and pain, was actually a distinction between dreams and reality. I think that achieving this level of discernment, a relatively firm grip on what truths we hold to be self-evident, reality, as it were, is what's generally classified as "growing up".
But even then, four years young, Jerk Pork was real. As real as beaches. Boston Bay, to be specific. The two were intrinsically connected. We were living in Jamaica at the time. I had a few floating memories of life before Jamaica, but they weren't particularly explicit or credible. I remembered visiting camels in the snow, for example. A past life. Specific beaches had specific actions, experiences associated with them. At Doctor Beach, I'd step on urchins. Hellshire beach was always associated with beach umbrellas and picnic baskets. Negril had sea grapes and sea almonds, we'd split the latter open with a machete against a rock, delicately edge out the thin crescent of nut within. Half Moon Bay was an abandoned yacht, grounded on the reef, and snorkelling. Frenchman's Cove was a confluence, of stream and sea, flow and waves, fresh water and sea.
And Boston Bay was Jerk Pork. And vice versa. I don't remember ever having one without the other. Boston Bay was also the beach with the highest waves, in my memory - along most parts of the island's shoreline, the ocean lapped, curled and frothed, gently churned up delicate shells, pink sunsets, but at Boston Bay, the waves often felt higher, stronger, than I was. Worthy adversaries, that would sometimes knock me down, salt blinding my eyes, spitting sand, water rolling tumbling over me. The beach sloped up into a rampart of cliffs, sharp bubble curls of black volcanic rock that cut into my fingers, bit through my plastic flipflops, when I tried to climb them. Above the cliffs, a crest of green, arching away in both directions, encompassing the bay, the sandy froth of the beach fading into a Caribbean blue, water hazing grey against the horizon, the sky always a hot faded blue-white, in my memory.
But before we walked down to the beach, we always stopped to get some jerk pork. I think at the beginning, there was just one jerk pit, a square 10x10 foot plane of hot coals, ashed-over charcoal, smoke wifting up, heat radiating, blackened bones of branches splayed within the crumbling embers, the grey-white feathery dust. The pit was covered, a roof of rusting corrugated iron braced across hewn branches, against rainy days. The meat cooked on spits, above the heat. Jerk pork, and jerk chicken. Men tended the fire, the meat, shirtless, scruffed faces, obeying sacred rites, of when to rake the coals, or baste the meat, or through fresh wood in, or when to take the hungry audience's money. Others stood around, boys and younger children on the peripheries. I'm sure there was conversation, but I don't remember any dialogue. In Jamaica, banter was inherent. Not necessarily noticeable, or memorable.
We slipped in, my sister and I, white as we were, effortlessly, everywhere, it seemed. Maybe because we always had that child's gleam of awe, and natural acceptance, of things as they were. And talked patois like locals. Jamaica's a perfect place to raise a child. Or at least, was at the time. We could wander anywhere, talk to anyone, and get nothing but charm and respect, affectionate conversation. I didn't think the world could be any other way, until we moved away.
I think the Jerk pork came wrapped in a newspaper. The Daily Gleaner, of course. There was but one newspaper, in Jamaica. The comics page had Tarzan, and this friendly protean blob of blackness, that could magically transform itself into whatever shape was most likely to resolve the issue of the day. Carousel, pony, tiger, airplane, whatever. To the joy of the children. You knew that it was him, because whatever form he changed into, he kept his eyes, and happy smile. America might have Richie Rich, but Jamaica had whatever the hell this character was called. It might quite honestly have been called Blackie. I'd google the topic, but that would knock me off-track, and preclude my finishing this story.
Which is about Jerk Pork. Although I usually chose Jerk Chicken. We'd walk down to the beach, unwrap the package, and this hot spiced waft of fumes would hit me in the face. The chicken was painfully hot, suffused with spice, so much so that if I touched your fingers to your eyes, after eating, it would make me cry. So hot that it seared my lips, left a remnant taint itching my mouth for hours after. But sweet despite that. I think that my parents peeled off the skin. The meat was tender, moist, intense.
For some reason, we never had plates, and somehow always, it seemed, I dropped my chicken in the sand. Which required walking out of the shade of the cliffs to the edge of the water, to rinse the meat in the waves. A few grains of sand would still adhere, gritting between my teeth, but in my memory, it wasn't really Jerk until I'd dipped it into the sea, diluted the spice-bite of the meat with the salt of the ocean....
