Sorrel Juice

So I kind of apologize for my recent fascination with “how to” posts, especially because many of you will never actually see a real breadfruit so what’s the use?? But while many of you read this from the frosty north, it is also available for other PC Jamaica volunteers and staff to read. My close family and friends know that I love to be…instructional…and I like to write. So I guess this is how those two personality traits have manifested themselves.

Tomorrow, I leave for Kingston for an All Volunteer Conference, and I will be sharing Thanksgiving with PCJ staff and other volunteers. Friday we are having a potluck, and with the amount of sorrel coming from the demonstration plot lately, I took the advice of a friend and made Sorrel Juice.

Fun Facts About Sorrel

• Sorrel will grow in the US during the summer!
• It’s really really good for you, super high in antioxidants and other lovely things.
• You can eat it raw, but it’s very bitter (Jamaicans make funny faces when I do it)
• It’s super easy to grow organically! Sorrel must be “plucked” of it’s seed pods, which are then dried and replanted- people here never buy sorrel seeds from the feed store. Wasps love sorrel plants and deter most dangerous insects and smaller birds from getting too friendly with it.
• Sorrel can make juice, tea, jam, liquor, candy and other things not massively produced yet.

Preparing Sorrel

I know I post lots of pictures of sorrel, but I think it’s a really awesome and pretty looking plant. So in case you forgot, this is a sorrel bud- the edible part:

That dense part in the middle is the seed pod. That needs to be “plucked”. Methods vary: You have the “pull apart” method where you simply tear the pod out from the center of the bud, some use a knife and cut a hole in the bottom of the bud to force the pod out and some, like my supervisor, find old umbrella poles and use them to pop the pods out of the sorrel. I prefer option 1 and 3… I’ve cut myself with option 2.

Seed pods look like this:

 

Sorrel without the pod looks like this:

To get the seeds from the pod just lay them out in the sun and the pod will open, expelling the seeds. The pods are heavier than the sorrel so always weigh sorrel after they’ve been plucked if you’re going to sell them.

Extracting the Juice

Like most other things here, I have no exact measurements, but 3-5 lbs of sorrel makes a whole lot of juice.

Rinse the sorrel first and then put it in a large pot of water, cover it and heat it to boil. Once it boils, turn off the heat and make it sit for a few hours. Basically it steeps just like a tea, the longer it seeps the darker the tea… and the stronger (more bitter) the juice. I let mine sit about 2 hours.

When it has steeped long enough, strain the sorrel out however is easiest. I started with a spoon and decided a large strainer would go faster.

Traditional sorrel juice is flavored with sugar and ginger. The ginger is grated and seeped in the warm juice- I don’t know the proportions. I made my sorrel with sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon to add a more American Thanksgiving flavor to it. Also sometimes the ginger is a bit overwhelming.

In Jamaica it’s easy to find whole nutmeg so I ground up 3 of them and then doused the pot with ground cinnamon since I didn’t have sticks.

 

Add about 4 or 5 big spoons of sugar to the pot. It does a lot to alleviate the bitterness.

 

 

 

 

 

Whole nutmeg looks like this, I think it looks cool. Take off the light part and then crack the shell- the nutmeg is inside.

This is about how much cinnamon I added.

Finally warm up the pot again to dissolve everything into the juice and stir- strain it again and refrigerate!

The Great Breadfruit Flour Adventure!

I mentioned in the last post that the Farmer’s Group had agreed to make breadfruit flour in a workshop last week. Well, the turnout ended up being me, my supervisor and one other female farmer from the community. We don’t have a finished product and the timeline for the production of what we DO have is far from efficient. But I still feel successful, it is liberating creating something through trial and error, without someone whispering in your ear “you’re doing that wrong”, even if they’ve never done it before. This is a common statement among skilled persons here, understandably I suppose. Rural Jamaicans are a very resourceful and thrifty bunch, they work physically very hard for very little and they see Americans as people who do the opposite. So it makes sense that watching me learn to peel a green breadfruit on my own would be frustrating to someone who has been doing so for decades. My stubborn refusal to let people step in and do it for me prompts responses like “gyal yuh nuh easy!” and even the other day, “gyal if yuh was mah sister I’d beat yuh!” But I learn by doing- even if (or especially if) what I’m doing is wrong.

Anyway, here’s an account of the breadfruit flour making process. Persons in FL, Hawaii or other breadfruit yielding lands might find it useful. “Glutards” ie: those of a gluten free lifestyle will be pleased to know that breadfruit flour does NOT contain gluten. If you are none of the above, maybe it’s too cold to go outside and you could use some entertainment, so enjoy…

Basics For Breadfruit Beginners

 

 

This is what a breadfruit looks like (look up a pic of a tree, I don’t have one but they’re cool lookin). This one is small, they can get huge. This one is a few days picked, flour-making breadfruit should be freshly picked and drained, ie: a “Green” breadfruit. To drain it tear off the stem and let the white fluid seep out until it stops. This is important just take my word for it.

 

 

Once the breadfruit becomes soft (like most ripe fruit) it can be roasted over an open flame. Once the entire outside is charred, peel it and the inside can be very sweet and tasty. This is my favorite way to eat breadfruit.

 

 

Step One: Prepare

You’ll need probably 4 medium breadfruit to make 2 cups of flour- I have yet to figure out the math though. The breadfruit should be firm and green. Cut it into quarters from stem to navel. The inside should be pale, not yellow- yellow means ripe and sweet- it won’t slice easily because it’s soft and it doesn’t dry as readily. I know this from experience.

Peel the skin from the breadfruit with a sharp, smooth blade knife and cut out the center of seeds.

Now, the slicing of the breadfruit is debated and probably the most heavily trial-and-errored. At first I sliced very thin from the tip of each wedge:

For some reason I felt this process getting long, so I tried slicing along the wedge:

Either way you slice it (pun intended), the idea is a lot like slicing cheese- the thinner and more even the better.

At the workshop, my supervisor had cut hers into very tiny chunks but they took long to dry. The other farmer cut hers a little thick, and I think they actually ripened in the sun- they began to get musty and we can’t use them now.

Step Two: Dry

My perceptions of dry breadfruit drastically changed before and after the flour making process. While the majority of my breadfruit WAS dry, there were some pieces that were not and they caused problems in the process.

I hope you can see the difference in color here, the white slices are “dry” and the yellowish ones are not, yet. What I learned however is my most recent revelation. dry breadfruit is a lot like dry plaster of Paris. It should be white and brittle and you should be able to snap the pieces smaller, in sound and feeling. If the piece feels spongy or breaks without that satisfying pop, leave it out in the sun longer.

 

 

This is my first batch dried before the workshop. See how white and pretty?

 

 

For my next trial, I am going to use the large side of the cheese grater. Small pieces are easier to dry and to mill. Thin pieces in direct sunlight should take 3-5 hours to dry completely- beware of wind- it can be helpful but secure your space or you’ll have breadfruit flying everywhere.

The drying surface should be breathable and clean- I used newspaper and my old broken hammock cloth. Zinc was also recommended as well as shade cloth strung between two trees to allow moisture to escape from all sides.

Step 3: Workshop (Or, An Attempt to Mill)

We convened at the CDC container on the day of the workshop to find that the mill that had been donated to us by Trees that Feed (look them up, I can’t hyperlink without internet) was put together for the sake of keeping parts together, not because it was done correctly. So us three women spent the better part of an hour and a half screwing, unscrewing, trying and failing and finally succeeding at building the mill properly. I was enthusiastic and glad there were no men around to stifle our creative flow (“Yuh doin it wrong gyal, top ee, lemme do ee”, “Nuh man dat nuh right!” etc etc). I don’t know what this says about me but, while I have no patience with puzzles, give me a knot to untie and I’ll sit for hours. This was more like a knot than a puzzle.

 

 

We finally figured it out!

 

 

 

 

I now know the inner workings of this mill better than anyone- except maybe the engineers themselves.

 

Finely milled breadfruit, this is what you should be aiming for. Properly dried breadfruit will turn out like this.

You’ll know that the breadfruit is not properly dried because it will get chunky and those chunks get stuck in the gears. Like I said above, moist breadfruit is spongy, so when it goes through the grinder in the mill it just compresses instead of breaking apart into a powder. We decided to leave this first batch in the sun to dry and re-mill it this coming week. The good thing about breadfruit is that, if it doesn’t turn and get musty, it can always dry more, and after that nothing needs to be done except keep it in a cool dry place until a use is found. I plan to sift this flour tonight and try making dumplings with the good part.

Anything you make with wheat flour, you can make with breadfruit flour. Apparently.

Thanks for sticking with me- I’ll be reporting on more small successes as they come on this front.

All my love from the tropics, and Happy Thanksgiving to my family a friends- I will be there in spirit, making you breadfruit flour bread or biscuits or something infused with a little Jamaica. Blessings! <3

Christmas Breeze and Tings Fi Do

After a relatively inactive past week in terms of projects, this week is looking to be quite busy. Lately, I’ve started teaching “Applied Agriculture” to the Junior High Students. The plan was to teach every other Friday but I’m learning that school can be one of the more unpredictable parts of my schedule due to sick and sometimes forgetful teachers and students. Two weeks ago I introduced the the two questions you should always ask yourself before you plant something: What will this plant do for the ecosystem, and, What will this plant do for me? Then we talked about trees in this context. Today (Monday), the extension officer from the National Environmental Planning Agency (NEPA) came to the school and we planted 5 ornamental trees and 2 breadfruit trees. This Friday I plan to talk about soil and follow that with building a compost pile. The school already has chickens so we will be able to use chicken manure along with composted kitchen scraps. The kids will also start a log book for the trees, measuring them once a month and watering them twice a day.

A class like this is important for these students because they have not passed the standardized test that places them in a nearby (or faraway in some cases) high school. This means that many of them don’t read or spell well at all, and tangible lessons are more effective for them than sitting and copying notes. I hope to teach them about Agro Business so that they have something to fall back on if high school is not in their future. I’ve also recently come to appreciate the incredible amount of dedication it takes some of these kids to get to high school. Minimum wage in Jamaica is $5,000 a week, $1,000 a day and most parents don’t have steady jobs, they find work here and there. On average, it costs $700 A DAY to send a child to high school for taxi fare and meals, not to mention the $6,000 a semester school fees, books and supplies. At that rate, it’s hard to blame a kid for missing a few days of school a week, and with the job market, it’s hard to blame the parent either.

In addition to teaching the kids, the demonstration plot sorrel has taken off and is ready to be reaped. In three hours we can harvest roughly 22lbs of sorrel with two people and we’ve done this three days so far. People in Beeston Spring are gladly buying pounds of it as the cool “Christmas Breeze” reminds them to start making plenty of sorrel juice, traditionally a Christmas season drink with ginger. As a result, the Farmer’s Group is actually making money, and we are attempting to mill breadfruit into flour this Thursday as a result of a small (as usual) but productive (as UNusual) farmers meeting last week. Success story, hopefully, to follow.

Also, we have a bunch of pap-chow (bok-choy) coming in and I now have far to much of it to eat by the end of this week. It’s surprisingly delicious with turned (sweet) breadfruit though.

Finally, today after a long day of one thing after the other, I came home jonesing for a shower to find my bedroom door…locked? A turn of the key proved that no, it’s not locked, the forcefully cool, wonderfully revitalizing, spring-like Christmas Breeze had slammed my door closed with such force that the lock mechanism jammed and refused to spring back when I turned the key. So, the housekeeper and I spend 45 minutes prying the doorknob off the door with a large kitchen knife, then, when the problem didn’t fix itself from there, hammered and chiseled the inner mechanism away from the wooden door, resulting in a neat pile of wood chips and metal bits at our feet by the time the entire thing popped out of the door and it swung open. It was the most ridiculous thing I’ve done thus far, maybe, and now I have no doorknob. Hahaha, ohhh Jamaica- I still want to marry your “Christmas Breeze” mostly because it’s a “breeze” and not a “blizzard” and I find that simply adorable.

Pictures of the above activities here:

Sorrel, Kids and Broken Doors VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Turning Packie Into Calabash

The Rasta culture in Jamaica is prominent and diverse, ranging from the knot haired, toothless bushman to the bible quoting, hat wearing preacher. Most who wear locks are vegetarian but not all eat ital, which is essentially extreme veganism: no meat, dairy, salt or processed food. This also goes for plates and bowls, which is fortunate because the Packie Tree grows in abundance here. Packie is a hard shelled, gourd-like fruit (that you can’t eat) that rasta turn into plates, bowls, instruments, boxes and all sorts of fun things. Packie ranges in size so extremely that they can make cups and they can make serving plates. Once dried for its intended purpose, “Packie” becomes “Calabash”, and is recognized Island Wide as a symbol of Jamaican culture. Every year “Calabash”, the largest literary festival in Jamaica takes place in Treasure Beach and features some of Jamaicas most famous quick patois chatting poets and musicians.
Anyway, I’ve wanted to try my hand at making a Calabash bowl since I ate out of one at Zionites Farm during training. Here’s what I did:
First Pick yo Packie. A fruit that is green turning brown is ready to pick, like the one below. Next saw it (don’t machete it or it’ll crack in undesired places) in half depending on what you want to make. I chose to make two shallow bowls so I sawed it from stem to navel. For a cup you might choose to saw off the top piece- be creative and look around Jamaica for ideas, people do all sorts of things with these useful fruits.

I sawed my packie with a seraded kitchen knife, but make sure it’s sharp and carry a washcloth or towel with you- once you break through the shell, the insides make grip difficult. I wished I had a vice but I imagine that would scar the outside and it wouldn’t look so neat. The inside smells kind of like an American Apple. DON’T eat it, rumor is that it’s poisonous, plus, it doesn’t look super tasty.


Once you have the gourd sawed in half, use a spoon to gut the inside. Here is where I made a mistake.
Once the pulp comes out there’s still a white layer in there that needs to be scraped out too, it has the consistency of the white skin on an orange or grapefruit.

If you don’t scrape it out and go on to dry it, this is what you get:

A well scraped (and dried) gourd looks like this:

Once it’s scraped, leave it out in the sun until it dries. Dry it facing down, so the shell is on the outside. Once it turns brown, you can take it in, usually it only takes a day. I decided to wash mine thoroughly with the rough side of a sponge, due to my previous mistake, but they dry quick. So I promptly made my first meal and ate out of it!
YUM.

Cool Breezes

Hurricane Sandy blew over Jamaica last week Wednesday canceling school across the country and battering banana fields. The eastern parishes got it much worse than the western parishes which, if you haven’t checked a map yet, is where I am. So we counted our blessings and fallen branches, waited patiently for the electricity to come back and watched TYJ broadcast the damage seen by the  eastern parishes. It’s hard to fathom the damage a category 5 could inflict on this small country if the damage from a category 1 is this significant.

Jamaicans see their homes as investments, which is why they are often very unfinished. It is common to see a family living in a downstairs while the upstairs is still being built. It is common to see rebar coming out of rooftops and it is common for additions to take years, if not lifetimes. Most homes are built out of cement blocks stacked over rebar and set in concrete, but the process is time consuming and expensive, so families save when they can and build when it’s possible. Some people build cement additions onto their wood cabins, others build their houses so slowly, plants and goats take up residence. If a house goes up quickly, I’ve been warned, that person is a scammer or ganja man- especially if it belongs to a young man. If a family struggles financially, the chances of living in a sturdy cement home are slim, and for those families, especially in the eastern parishes, the chance of their house being damaged or lost in a storm is highly likely. It’s a pretty typical commentary on poverty, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer but once you have a house that can stand the tests of time, that house is in your family for generations, sheltering your grandchildren no matter the circumstances.

So now Sandy has unleashed her fury on my home state as well as my temporary home, and I watch images of the West Side Parkway underwater while high quality split screen reporting takes place in the foreground. Graphics whirl, foreboding catch phrases swirl and one of the networks pulls a flat screen touch screen somethin something out of a van to illustrate the storms path while doing an “on the scene” report. Very different from the TVJ coverage that skipped with technical glitches and pixilated, basic camera work. Frankenstorm indeed. Regardless, I know that the damage to the NY, NJ and eastern seaboard has been significant, and I’m reminded of the serious flooding in the Hudson River Valley last summer. I hope that crops have been reaped and the agricultural damage is not too terrible. Manhattan seems to be experiencing some unprecedented situations, so I hope that leaders and policy makers act with caution, and with the people in mind.

On a lighter note, I went to Hanover this weekend to visit a fellow PCV! Her site is beautiful, higher in the mountains than I am but with a similar view of the ocean. We watched a beekeeping workshop and took a walk to a nearby river and waterfall. Visiting other sites is always a great opportunity to reassess your own situation, and recharge your batteries.

I climbed up the side, but the girls were too lazy to move to get a good pic

Photo Essay

Went to Montego Bay about a month ago for some beach time and this was the sight that greeted us as we walked from the bus park to the beach. Do we continue or seek shelter? The fickle nature of coastal systems had us forging ahead.

We reached the beach and watched from the shore as the storm did its thing just in front of us, and we enjoyed a cool drizzle as we sat on the sand and watched the lightning storm ahead.

I tried really hard to get a shot of the lightning but obviously failed.

Yesterday I went with my host family to a foundation pouring. Yes, you read right, pouring a foundation of concrete is an event in Jamaica. A large group of men, usually friends, are hired to mix concrete, fill buckets or wheelbarrows with the concrete and then pour it into the foundation that had been previously dug out. A big meal is prepared (that was my host mom’s job) and rum is consumed. My host brother was particularly excited to go fishing in the nearby river which was very muddy from the rainy season. Take a look:

I also discovered that I can edit photos as fisheye shots. So expect more of those in the future!

This photo happened when I tried to take a picture of my host sister but she grabbed at the camera just as I took the shot. Turned out kinda cute still.