Negril, Jamaica – July ‘02
Welcome to Jamaica
Negril, a resort area on Jamaica’s West Coast, is renowned for its seven-mile strip of white sand beach and blazing sunsets. It is about an hour and a half drive from the Montego Bay airport after a three plus hour flight from Philadelphia. Jamaica is the third largest Caribbean Island, about the size and shape of Connecticut with a population of 2.5 million and located just south of Cuba. (Cuba is the largest island followed by Hispanola, which is home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.)
Originally settled by migrating Amerindians from South America, Jamaica’s modern heritage follows upon British colonial rule and an African slave-based plantation economy. In 1962, then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson watched the British union jack lowered for the last time and the Jamaican flag raised proclaiming independence. The Jamaican flag’s colors of black, green and yellow symbolize its people, land and sun respectively.
Jamaica is a lush and mountainous tropical island. While summers are marginally hotter than winters, the temperature does not fluctuate much from season to season. During our July stay it was never cool, nor was it unbearably hot – just uncomfortably warm. A few newer hotels have air-conditioning, but in important ways the lack of air-conditioning provides a more sensual tropical experience. This is not Miami with a patois lilt. And Jamaica is not quaint. The hills are alive with people trying to eke out a life for themselves and are not all that concerned with painting their modest dwellings with picture-postcard colors.
Despite a period of economic advancement in the late 70’s and early 80’s, Jamaica’s people are largely stuck in poverty. A third of Jamaicans are unemployed and minimum wage is the equivalent of ten cents an hour. There are several large cities in Jamaica including the largest - Kingston, the nation’s capital. The recently paved two-lane road from Montego Bay to Negril travels through a rural area dotted with a few towns developed on coastal bays. Many sections of the road are new and by-pass communities that grew along the now old coast-hugging road that had served as the way to Negril. The same process that occurred in America with small communities by-passed by a modernizing country is happening in Jamaica. The hills are dotted with grazing cows and scampering goats and the shoreline with squatters’ shacks.
Negril’s brief history as a resort destination dates to our hippie era of the late 60’s and early 70’s when Negril was “discovered” as an escapist haven laced with ganja – marijuana. The Great Morass, a large marsh that covers much of Western Jamaica also limited access to and development of the area. Negril’s small commercial center moves out from the rotary and river that divides the eastern beach road from the western cliff road.
The flashier, newer resorts are along the north end of beach road including the all-inclusive variety such as Sandals, Beaches, Grand Lido and Hedonism II. The rest of the Long Beach is lined with modest places to stay and beachfront bars and jerk places – most little more than huts. The rutted and winding West End Road is lined with mostly very modest small hotels along the cliffs with a few deluxe grottos including Rockhouse, Xtabi and The Caves. More densely populated than the beach road, the narrow West End Road has a more vital feel as it is home to many Jamaicans and lined with shacks offering everything from groceries and domino games for locals to modest restaurants and souvenir shops for visitors. There is a lively commercial strip frequented by locals situated on the road that leads south out of town toward Sheffield.
Our Jamaican Home
Noah and I stayed for eight summer days in a wooden “colonial” home named Llantrissant. Named for its Scottish heritage, Llantrissant sits on two acres hugging the Caribbean and is a short walk to the rotary and Hi Lo Supermarket. Information on Llatrissant can be found at www.Beachcliif.com.
The comfortable and very clean home and surrounding garden is cared for by Pauline the house cook/housekeeper and Straw, the gardener. A wide wooden porch overlooks two sandy beaches separated by a long seawall with the Caribbean beyond. There is eight hundred feet of frontage on the Caribbean. A long cement wall provides protection and privacy from the main West End Road. At night a guard patrols the property. An added bonus were four friendly dogs who scamper around or seek out a shaded area for R & R. The youngest and most playful was ten month old Zeke. There was a tennis court, lovely trees and shrubs all around and a small sheltered pond that provided home to four plump sea turtles that were fed daily by Pauline.
A few words about Jamaican foods
Rather than take advantage of Pauline's cooking skills, we provided our own simple breakfast and ventured out for lunch and dinner. Despite Jamaica’s ever-summer growing season, there is limited domestic produce. A nascent farming tradition was driven out by the long history of sugar plantations taking over Jamaica’s wide fertile plains. As a result, much of Jamaica’s limited produce is grown in people’s back yards for personal use or sale at roadside tables or imported.
Produce is far less abundant here than in our local supermarkets back home. Exceptions are the local mango, coconut and pineapple and a few traditional root and squash-based produce items. Thyme is the principal fresh herb.
The predominant spice is the locally named pimento, which we know as allspice. Allspice is the dried berry of a native evergreen and has flavor tones of nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. All of the world’s allspice comes from Jamaica. There is a large banana export business, but bananas and plantains are hardly in evidence on menus – perhaps as a result of Jamaica’s British rather than Latin heritage.
The hills and roads are widely populated with cattle, though beef is not a major component of the diet, in part a result of the scare from Britain’s mad cow disease. Menu staples include local chicken, goat and oxtail as well as local lobster – actually a large classless prawn, conch (pronounced konk) and fish. As amazing as it might seem in an island country surrounded by crystal clear water, much of the “local” fish is imported frozen owing to local over-fishing.
An Excursion to the Black River and YS Falls
Though Jamaica is not a culinary paradise, it does offer a limited variety of flavorful dishes. A daylong excursion to the Black River and YS Falls provided some culinary highlights. The forty-four mile Black River is Jamaica’s second longest and originates in the central mountains that cover most of Jamaica’s interior. You go to the Black River to see alligators in their natural habitat. Owing to the fact that alligators are cold blooded and highly territorial protecting small “personal’ enclaves, the boat drivers know exactly where to take tourists to see “Herman” or “Mable” dependably sunning on the river’s surface. And because the boat drivers occasionally feed them, the alligators are responsive to the driver’s beckoning to the side of the boat. YS Falls is Jamaica’s “other falls” as the Dunn’s River falls near Ocho Rios is more widely known and visited. Better for us.
From the reception area, the falls are a short drive on a tractor-pulled tram through what was once a sugar plantation and now a farm that breeds Red Poll cattle, a breed native to Jamaica, and thoroughbred horses. The falls cascade down a series of steps with each level offering a swimming area. Wooden stairs alongside the falls enable you to climb nearly to the 120-foot summit.
As we left Black River and headed toward YS Falls, we stopped in the small town of Black River at Juicy Beef, one of a chain of patty shops to get our first taste of Jamaican patties – Jamaica’s fast food. The piping hot patties were generous semi-circles of a deep-fried curry-seasoned flaky dough encasing fillings of curried lobster and curried chicken. In Middle Quarter we stepped into a wooden hut and waited in a short line to purchase a bag of briny fresh water shrimp that had been boiled in a very spicy chili water.
As we continued our drive, women along the side of the road were selling bags of small local plums. On the road from YS Falls we came to a line of stands along the coast at Scott’s Cove that sold a variety of fried local fish. We picked apart a whole crisp-fried snapper topped with a few raw onions and peppers. These stands are also known for bammy, which is a pancake made from a flour distillation of the large cassava root. (Cassava is also known as yucca.) The still-warm, spongy bammy had a neutral, slightly sweet and mildly fermented flavor. Bammy is also offered in a more refined form in restaurants where it is cut into wedges and pan-fried until crisp. As we arrived home in Negril we stopped at the Juicy Beef in the little strip center near the Shell Station on Sheffield Road to sample a beef patty. Though the two Juicy Beef shops looked completely different, the Juicy Beef name was stenciled on the edge of all of the patties assuring us of that Juicy Beef quality!
Continue: Negril Jamaica - July '02 - Part II
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Negril, Jamaica - July '02 - Part I
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