DO YOU REMEMBER THE DAYS OF SLAVERY
This poem is an ode to Caribbean women (me included) stuck in the rut of the slavery diet, which our tastebuds inherited the tasty trauma of. Salty, fatty meats, placing value on animal produce and devaluing nutritionally dense food isn’t something that can go unspoken of when the conversation of slavery arises. Especially not in a diasporic community where women and men are twice as likely to contract prostate and breast cancer in comparison to white counterparts. Slavery still lingers and the effects have never required observation or sight alone. The effects are clear through all five senses of pigtail stew peas goodness. The poem explores a conflicting conversation I had with my ancestors about why they chose to pass down recipes that gave my mum high cholesterol and my auntie breast cancer.
Do you remember the days of slavery?
How do you want to remember slavery?
Am I a victim of transatlantic slavery?
Or am I a survivor whooooo...
Bares the same trauma as my ancestors.
Them ask why we still affi talk about slavery...
...Because oxtail, crowfoot and pigs feet still taste so sweet to me
From the likkle scraps massa gave my great great granny
No nutritional value pon it
Di likkle piece a skellion can’t save it
Nuh matter how mi try fi mek it sound healthy
Them ask why we still affi talk about slavery...
...Because food we still ah eat can cause disease
Aunty breast cancer, chemotherapy
Mi ah suck out the bone ah di lamb neck stew
Chew off di gristle pon the chicken back
Links to high cholesterol and heart attack
Mi still nuh want face di facts
But who is to blame for my family recipe
Is it di massa who left di scraps fi my great great granny?
So when them ask why we still affi talk about slavery...
...It’s because plantation food still taste so so sweet
by Jahmila