She might not be one of Jamaica’s officially listed heroines, but those in search of good old home-style cooking know that Norma Fay Henry’s restaurant located off Whitehall Avenue never fails to deliver anything but an excellent plate of local fare.

It’s raining heavily as we snake our way down Whitehall Avenue and although it’s not yet midday the lunch crowd is already out, even first-timers like Tyrone Chambers who tells Thursday Food that he found his way to Norma’s as a result of seeing the large crowd: “The crowd has always fascinated me so I decided to stop today and pick up lunch.” His lunch is the very popular oxtail, 20lbs of which is cooked daily.

Chambers will, we suspect, like so many others, become an immediate convert and retrace his steps many more times.

It’s difficult not to and even though there is a sign that indicates ‘No Parking’ in front of the restaurant, patrons seem oblivious as they crowd the grilled area in search of their favourite special.

“Lunch,” explains Henry, “is served daily between the hours of 11:30 am and 3:00 pm,” and with offerings like French-fried chicken, oxtail, chicken chop suey, ham and vegetable stir-fry, pork and beans, curried goat, curried chicken foot, stew beef and dumplings and macaroni and mince, there’s little wonder that the rush is on. If there’s anxiety outdoors, Henry’s son Chris is inside the kitchen, a study of absolute calm, listening carefully to each request (patrons have the option of combining meats) and plating accordingly. Henry’s assistant, Jackie, tends to the coal stoves, adding coal periodically.

It’s a well-run kitchen. “We’ve had to put certain things in place to ensure customer satisfaction, but the prices are still within reach.” Indeed they are – Henry’s exquisite lunches start at $250. The preparations start at the end of each day with the packaging of Henry’s secret ingredients: ginger, escallion, Scotch bonnet pepper, garlic, onions, tomatoes and thyme.

“They’re packaged each evening and are what we use each morning to season our meats.” Henry believes in preparing meats from scratch each day. “I take no short cuts, it’s what I love to do.” No idle boast for the 50-odd-year-old who caters to patrons from all walks of life who simply want traditional, tasty fare.

“My customers will try most of what we prepare but naturally have their favourites – Beenie Man, for example, loves curried chicken foot, Ele enjoys almost everything, Bling Dawg finds it hard to resist the stew beef and dumplings, for Vybz Kartel it’s stew peas and salt beef as well as the stir-fry chicken, Daryl Vaz pops in too as does record producer Don Corleon, who enjoys the stewed beef, the chicken stir-fry and the curried chicken.” Henry’s list is in fact as inexhaustible as she appears to be.

Not bad for a woman who was born with a hole in her heart and whom doctors did not expect to live. Norma Fay Henry has in recent times been advised by her doctors to slow down and this she has, leaving most of the daily stresses to her sons Chris and Karl and loyal staff members, but like her mother Evadney Henry, who started the culinary journey of excellence in the late ’40s at what is now Midway Mall, it’s hard not to still want to do it all.

“It’s something I’ve enjoyed since my days at Swallowfield All-Age,” she shares. “I was always interested in baking and cooking. Home Economics classes were where I always could be found. In fact, many times I was marked absent by other teachers who didn’t know where I was.”

Henry left school with her passion for home economics still intact and started selling ground provisions as well as cooking a little roast fish, soup, as well as roast beef on the streets. The business thrived, with persons coming from miles away to enjoy her cooking. Twenty-three years later Henry, a single parent of four, reckons, “it couldn’t be better.A lot of my dreams have come true, and I have done my mother (now deceased) proud.”

Henry has certainly done herself proud too, moving her food off the streets to the back of her mother’s home and fully expanding the restaurant. Along the way she has moved from a board house to rented quarters and now turns the key to her own home. Locals and foreigners seek out Miss Norma for the best in local cuisine, and her stew pork remains legendary (just ask the former Governor General Sir Howard Cooke). Henry, who is at Coronation Market most mornings in search of the freshest provisions for the restaurant, has a simple philosophy, “I’m a firm believer in family and have tried to embrace all. I know what it is to be at rock bottom and to still believe that poor me could make it. You can’t be too poor to think highly of yourself. You can’t be too poor to go out there and survive.” I guess we finally understand why there’ll always be a crowd at Norma’s.