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The issue is more than ackee and saltish
TEENage Editorial
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Last week in parliament, the issue of Jamaicans eating what we grow and growing what we eat, took a riduculous twist.
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| Ackee and saltish |
Senator Sandrea Faulkner in lamenting the treatment of farmers, and their image in the Jamaican landscape stated: "Had we consistently maintained a policy of eat what we grow and the promotion of locally grown foods, we would certainly be in a better place today with a smaller trade deficit."
She went on to say: "I cannot understand for the life of me how our national dish has an imported product as one of the major components, and I think we have to look at ackee and saltfish. We import saltfish and saltfish should not be a part of our national dish. We have to have national pride and all components of our national dish should be Jamaican. Jamaican produced and Jamaican made, and I feel very strongly about that. There is corned pork but there are those that don't eat corned pork but we can discuss it."
There are few things that we can take from these statements, but what is really jarring are the inaccuracies about our heritage that pervade this country.
The Jamaica Information Service website states that "Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica as well as a component of the national dish - ackee and codfish (saltfish)". It also goes on to say that "Ackee is a very delicious fruit and when boiled and cooked with seasoning and saltfish or salt pork. It is considered one of Jamaica's greatest delicacies".
Ackee and salt fish is the preferred dish of Jamaica and due to its popularity is widely recognised as the national dish. Most students are taught this at an early age.
But, as pointed out by Observer columnist Michael Burke, on April 26, 2007 in an article entitled 'As Independence drew near': "Incidentally. the constitution of Jamaica in its schedule on national symbols, speaks to a national fruit which is the ackee, but it does not speak to a national dish."
So, if there is no national dish, why is this argument being brought up in parliament to debate whether or not the dish should be removed as such?
Jamaica is composed of a myriad of ethnicities, hence our motto "Out Of Many One People". With that being said, to say that ackee and saltfish should not be the national dish because saltfish is not indigenous to Jamaica shouldn't be an issue, as Jamaicans today aren't an indigenous people. We are all descendants of people who came here from Africa, Europe and Asia during colonisation.
Salt(Cod)fish is not found in Caribbean waters, and has to be imported, as are most other foodstuffs used on the island.
Notwithstanding all of this, TEENage is saying that the ackee-and-salt-fish debate is not important, and should not be a main priority amongst our politicians.
The focus of our politicians should be elsewhere, upon more important national issues such as national security, unemployment and violence in schools. If there are to be complaints about the importation of foods the debate should centre around the continued importation of foods that can be grown domestically.
In the meantime, TEENage recommends that we all continue to partake of the 'national dish' of ackee and saltfish, as well as add a few other domestic dishes to the menu - curried goat, all things jerk, dukunu, banana dumpling, rice and peas, et al.
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