It might seem odd that a tropical country would have a tradition of hot hearty soups
and richly flavored slow-cooked stews....
But Jamaicans relish these steamy one-pot meals that are a part of their culinary heritage.
Howie's Number One Stop in Middle Quarters is a showcase for some of Jamaica's classic stews.
Ok, here we are at Middle Quarter,
at Howie's famous roadside food, 24 hours.
They - Howie - always talks about the log wood burning through the night.
You see, that, he's a Bob Marley man, you know. So....His log would never go out.
We're here with Sammy, who's his chef.
And Sammy's going to take us through all the soups and the different things that they cook here.
They're all really good, real Jamaican food here.
So, first of all we have the Conch Soup, in here.....
What do we have in the Conch Soup, Sammy?
We have pumpkin, yam, and all different kinds of things inside of it. Conch, curried up seafood.....
And then we got a spinner there, see that? That's a spinner.
It's good for the back, right? Yeah, very good for the back, right.
Okay, here we have the fish tea.
This is made with vegetables, fish head, boiled down, very nice and viscous and.....
It's a good Saturday soup.
Here we got again, just mostly vegetables and....and a little bit of provision.
Okay, what we have here, we have the Jenga Soup, this is the shrimp soup.
Jenga is a freshwater crayfish.
They call it shrimp, or jenga, or fresh fish---or fresh *crayfish.*
It comes out of the marshes here, all through this area.
The fishermen go out and catch it.
And they make a soup here. And...... What do you put in the soup, Sammy?
[Sammy] We use pumpkin, yam.... All different kind of things, here. Very good.
[Host] Lots of vegetable. Very, very, very, very fortifying. Again, you see.
Yeah, and there, we have a nice "spinner." Why do we call them "spinners," Sammy?
[Sammy] Because you need it to look like.... Ah, spin it..... [Host] You spin them into the pot, right?
When we're doing it, we just spin it right into the pot. So we take the dough.....
We just roll it like that, just spin it right into the pot, right?
Then, of course, spin and boil it right up, yeah.
All right, so we have the two different red peas, here.
The red pea soup with the cow skin, and red pea soup with a chicken foot.
Chicken foot is a very, very popular thing in Jamaica.
In fact, ya, matters, matters, Sammy say!
Okay, one of the things about chicken foot,
when they cook it in the soup, it gets very soft and very gelatinous and....
They give it to the babies, when the baby's teething, because they can suck on it and it's good on their gums.
Okay, so we got there with the chicken foot. And then the other is a red pea soup.
The same red pea soup - red beans cooked down..... But with the *cow skin.*
And we got some spinners. There's a piece, you see, those red pieces there, right there, right on the edge......
That's the cow skin, there.
Right there....
When you're ordering a meal in Jamaica.... Like if you order fish or you order oxtail,
you can have it with rice and peas, or you can have it with "food."
And "food" is boiled banana, yam, dumpling, and so forth. So if you ask for "food," that's what you get.
So, they boil all that up together. The banana....
And it's a green banana, that is, a green banana and dumpling and yam and....
And that's the empty food pot, so the food done!
And right over here, now, Sammy doing fried chicken.
Fried chicken.... Jamaicans, we love, just love fried chicken.
You season your rice with a little pepper in there, before you start. Put a little scotch bonnet in the oil....
And....and then fry up the chicken. And what you put on the chicken? There's flour, or....?
[Sammy] We use garlic and pepper and season.
[Host] So, you do garlic, pepper, right? [Sammy] Put it in the blender. And you rub it up, all together, and mix it.
[Host] Season it up good. Right. Right.
Yeah, people love it. And then you season the oil first, right?
Okay, so this is actually the rice and peas actually cooking now. So we cook the beans a bit earlier....
And then he boiled up the seasoning, the scallion, and....
[Host] You put any ginger in it, or no? [Sammy] Yes. [Host] A little bit of ginger. [Sammy] Garlic.
[Host] Garlic. And boil it, season it up, and then....and yeah.... And then put in the rice.
And let that sit.
And that'll be cooked all the way to the bottom and not a thing burned, no?
[Host] No pot cake, nothing! Everything cleaned to the bottom, right? [Sammy] Yeah. [Host] Yeah, man.
So that's the rice and peas, which go with it virtually everything, right?
[Sammy] Fried chicken, curry goat, ox tail, everything.....
[Host] The oxtail!
This is the one of Howie's speciality.
In fact, I have people that, when they....When you're driving by here, don't matter where they live, they say, "make sure you stop at Howie's and bring me some oxtail."
So, the oxtail. Cut that very fine.
And you serve that with the rice and peas or white rice.
And you season that up with.....What again? Garlic and....
[Sammy] Pepper and onion and everything.
[Host] So this gets the butter bean, which is the big white beans we saw in the market at Coronation.
And that nice amount of gravy to soak up on the rice. Yeah....
Yeah, man, matters say.....
[Host] And then, what you have in here? [Sammy] In here we have the Curry Goat!
[Host] Oh! Curry Goat! [Sammy] This is the Curry Goat. [Host] National arms.
[Host] You make your own curry powder, or.....? [Sammy] I buy the curry up there.
[Host] The Indian curry? You use the Indian curry from the market.
[Sammy] (.....Indistinct......)
[Host] Well, goat, we go, meat goats here in Jamaica....
Especially for the meat goat, we use two parts. We use the head to make the mannish water. We use the rest of the goat to make the curry.
Curry goat is.....We cook it with Indian curry powder, onion, little tomato, thyme, garlic, ginger.....
And cook it up.
So, you know, it's a classic curry, but lots of bones!
And one of the great things about Jamaican curry, is the way you enjoy it, is you got to suck all the bones.
And if you don't get lots of bones, then most people don't feel it's a good curry.
So we got the.... We got the curry there.
Not, not too hot. Good curry should be nice and mellow, and the flavor come right through, right? Right!
This is a Nanka. They have their little thing here with the tire iron.
A barbecue. And and he going to do some crayfish, here. We catch the crayfish in the marsh.
This is a live crayfish. And they're called Jenga or crayfish or shrimp.
And here we just boil this, so they have this with some pepper.
I cook it up with some pepper. Let's cook for about 20 minutes.
And we just cool it off. And just pick it out and eat it right like that.
So, once it cook out....
Just pull off the head, it's still hot, this.... And got the meat, and suck out the head....
And break open the shell, and eat the meat. So....
This one.... Good nice size. They're nice and chewy. They got a lot of texture to them.
So, they're good.
I'm making some Ital....Ital soup.
So I got peanuts and peas. So I cooked this with the.....
With a.... with a red peas, and the gongo peas, and Irish potato.
And don't take so long to cook.
No salt, the Ital.... No meat.
And.....
We've got ground provision. And um.....
You got yam there too, right? Yeah, right. Yam, Coco, breadfruit, Irish....
[Host] And the breadfruit don't cook down too much? [Nanka] No. [Host] It's stays And carrot, okay.
So, here we got the Jenga soup. The same Jenga that you say they cook it separately, picked here....
Cook again with ground provision, and um.....
Well up the jenga. Scotch bonnet pepper.
And when you when you buy order, you get a nice Jenga there to pick out.
And you have, what? Ground provision in here. You put any dumpling in here? No spinners?
[Nanka] No dumplin. Just yam, breadfruit, Irish.... Dasheen.... [Host] Okay...
[Host] And why you don't put no dumpling? [Nanka] No........
[Host] What happened? [Nanka] Dumplin' burn out the fire.
[Host] Oh, alright, I didn't know that. Okay.... [Nanka] When the fire get too hot, the dumplin'......
[Nanka] They get burnt. [Host] And they stick to the bottom. Alright, okay....
[Host] So this is Milo. Milo been here forever. So, Milo, how long you been here?
[Milo] About forty year, man.
[Host] Been here 40 years. So, it's good you're doing the soup out in the courtyard, eh?
[Milo] Yeah, man. [Host] Yeah, man, good, good.