JAMAICANS at home and the Diaspora, where the product is available, have for several years been eating Easter bun with cheese which has now become a tradition.

From running to the kitchen for a slice of bun and cheese during Easter, to skilfully sneaking a piece when no one is looking, most Jamaicans near and far remember eating bun and cheese when they were younger.

Jamaicans in the Diaspora share their memories with the Jamaica Observer.

“Mi remember mi used to wake up and thief out the bun by cutting the slices a bit thin, then wetting mi finger and running it over the edge of the bun so it don’t look like it was cut recently,” Jevaughne Ferron, who is living in Canada, said.

“I never really liked bun, this was due to the fact that Easter bun had those weird tasting red, green and orange pieces of fruits in them. It wasn’t until high school that I tried spice bun and started eating bun and cheese that I realised I could have bun without the [fruits] in them,” said Leon Brown, who is currently living in China.

“I remember being very excited for Easter because I know it means that I can eat a lot of bun and cheese. As a child, it was so fun to just play, and then for lunch, it was bun and cheese,” said Normalyn Campbell, who is also living in Canada.

“Growing up as a youth, when Easter time come round, it was a joy when mummy seh, ‘Boy, you affi guh get di Easter bun enuh’, and send wi guh ah shop or guh ah Santa [Cruz] in a di town fi guh buy it. We cyaa wait ’til Easter day fi come forward fi start bite up dat deh bun and cheese,” Queens, New York resident Rayon Morgan told the Observer.

“Easter was about church, and my mother was very strict on the ‘not eating anything else but the traditional dishes’, so it was bun and cheese and fish. The problem was that my dad was not having it. He would ask, ‘Weh me dinna deh? Me nuh inna dem foolishness yah.’ Following his death and us [six siblings] getting older, we upheld the tradition even more so. The best part was the huge Sunday dinner that followed the bun and cheese and the fried fish diet,” Morgan added.

“On a long, hot and miserable flight to Jamaica, right before exiting the airport in Kingston they were giving out free bun and cheese and it was the perfect end to an exhausting journey and an instant mood improver. It set the whole mood to start enjoying the vacation because it was the perfect welcome home,” said Canadian resident, Eric Howard.

See related story on Pages 8 & 9

— Candice Haughton