Santa who?

First and foremost, the place where my origins began did not have the luxury of a lovely table spread with tantalizing aromatic, colorful and mouth watering varying conglomeration of foods. If luck favored us and funds allowed, we may have a whole chicken, not just some parts, cooked for the seven, eight, nine or whatever number of mouths that needed feeding at the time. It all depended on whether or not a few extra mouths had been rescued by my mother. She was known for her warmth and kindness. Most homes however, had a back yard garden, so we were able to supplement the lack of meat with home grown vegetables. There was no Christmas tree though, no decking the halls with holly, no caroling or even opening of gifts. We got up early on Christmas morn, ate breakfast, went to church and came home to a warm simple but well balanced delicious meal.

There were however, many a playing of Christmas carols everywhere you went. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose, we sang, not knowing the first thing about reindeer noses, or whether or not all of the other reindeers had green shiny noses while poor Rudolph's was, to his misfortunate, red. The absence of a tree meant that there was also a marked absence of presents. Who could afford them? We had the odd Christmas programs at church where we sang many a beautiful holiday carol, we wore our best frocks, while the boys fidgeted with their button up shirts.

My family does not like to be talked about, airing of dirty laundry, even if it's the simplest most banal of an unimportant thing, you were supposed to leave it alone. Any hint of whispers about the quality or quantity of holiday faux pas about their cooking will probably find a hitman searching violently for you. The will to 'labrish'* or gossip about their food may cause them to truly entertain malice and not speak to you for years to come. If you were young enough, and mischievous enough, a sound trouncing may be your lot.

In my later years, when my first job enabled me to take a short holiday vacation visit abroad, making my first sojourn into the USA, imagine my consternation and shock to behold vast tables of myriad and fantastically arrayed foods adorning the many tables of the land. Turkey, to me, is a little too bland for my taste, perhaps because of the deliciously entrenched taste of back home chicken. Other items on these tables included, stuffing, ham, beef, cranberry sauce, egg nog, baked goods, pork, fried chicken, I could go on and on. These were seen by me as extravagance extraordinaire. The contrast was completely mind boggling. I mean, we saw it in the movies, but to actually be a physical party to the whole Thanksgiving and Christmas fares was indeed eye opening.

My repertoire of hijinx stories is thin indeed.

I must admit that the very few Christmas dinner gatherings at the homes of my American families were really great. They had the art of cooking down to an artform. Caribbean folks like their food hot and spicy, a little less so for the enjoyment of the young kiddies. Apart from the normal family tete a tete bickering, and comparisons of who were the better cooks, the holidays always went without much drama. Except for the time I tried to make Oxtail.

Many Americans, and indeed many other peoples of the world, may not have heard of this part of the ox being a delicacy. When cooked just right, with some teeny tiny rolled dumplings and broad white beans, it is a delight to the taste buds. Now I am without doubt the worst cook in the family. I make passable food most times, but I should definitely leave the more complicated and nuanced meals to the sisters, mother, aunts, and even some of the men folk.

Now, oxtail is not at all inexpensive, and you have to maybe drive to far-away places to purchase it. Anyway, it was bought, not by me, I might mention, and I decided, erroneously, to make it for the first time in my life. What made me arrive at this decision I attribute to temporary insanity. I now realize that I should have sought advice before embarking on this ordeal.

I threw some seasoning on the thing and plunked it into a pot. It cooked for a while, but it remained tough and stubborn and would not cooperate with me. I poured water on it, kept on frying it, instead of cooking though, it started to burn and sizzle. I tried rescuing it by cutting away the burnt parts, I was only left with large gaping holes with the bones very visible and uncooked. I turned the holes upside down and tried cooking it again, maybe more cooking would seal the holes and no one would notice. That side too, however, decided to be jealous of the other side and proceeded to join in the burning party as well. What was I to do? The sister's expensive and miles of travel to obtain it oxtail was ruined. I decided then that my best option on the matter was to run away as far as I could. Which I did, after shoving the entire pot of oxtail into the oven and disappearing any obvious evidence that I had been in the kitchen. Luckily, everyone was out doing last minute secret shopping.

It turns out, there is an art that involves boiling the meat in hot salty water, cooling it down, seasoning it, then cooking it some more. I am pretty sure that I can cook it now if anyone wants to try it with me. No! I have not made it since, but I bet I can.

I have no idea how long it took for poor sister to find the oxtail in the oven. I didn't hear from her for weeks, and I was not going to call. She never once mentioned my transgression even years later. It may be the stoic in her psyche, emotions are very ambiguous and hard to read when it comes to discerning her.

I am guessing no hitmen were available, it being Christmas and all!

Happy new year!

N.A.

***'Labrish' is a Jamaican term for gossip.