Black History Month in Poetry (1625-1960) - Part One

Small chattel-house where she was born and raised       

In Maycock's village, her ancestral home;

Bare-foot youth on Sunday evenings did walk

Rope leashed black-belly sheep and goats, to graze

Weeds and grass on dust roads, without boardwalk;    

Mindful of cane-fields that grow planters' cash;

As arrowed canes swayed before cropping bash;

Those cane-sucking youths watched Broomfield's sweet teeth

Skinned and strained, sweet crystals in crocus bags;

They lived just a stone-throw from grandma's house;

She sold villagers black pudding and souse;

In enamel plates without paper-bags

Once each month early on Saturday morn                                                                                                                           

The butcher came; slaughtered her homegrown boar,

To prepare for her unique Bajan fare;  

Black pudding and souse she sold with great care;  

Advents stance on this Bajan dish made clear; 

      Leviticus eleven; be aware.

       

                            

                                                                                              

Black pudding and souse I have recipe;

A relic from days of by-gone slavery;

Handed down by grandmother Emily.

Legend says that colonial masters

Gifted to blacks; they owned in this country

Specific parts, carved from their butchered pig:

The head, feet, tail and the offal; Darwinly

They believed, slaves were full of infra dig

That matched, their "fine-china from calabash";

Look at pictures above and toss your mind:

Prime cuts of hog those rich-folks; they did stash;

Feasting on shoulder chops, loin chops, spare ribs,

Bacon, ham and eggs in their  posh housetops.

Back in the village folks are thinking now

How best to make delicious new cuisine

That blends various parts off their master’s sow;

Who among them would do what, when and how?

Maxine was given the pig’s head to clean;

She cut it in two parts and removed brain;

Pam Smith-Skeete cleaned ears, tails and sow's trotters;

Tossing them in iron pot that squatters

Boiling in salt on dried peels from the cane

Cooking done; set aside for meat to cool;

Cooled meat cut in slices off bones in bowl

Of pickle made of salt water, lime-juice,

Cucumber, few red peppers diced, not whole;

Now sits in larder garnished with parsley;

Souse now in pickle marinates coolly;

This dish of ingenious necessity

Waits, for boudin noir trail joints to roll in;

Clean logistics worked out for pudding skin;

Black pudding, English name for boudin noir

Pig's blood captured in bowl with vinegar

Poor pig hangs in the air, head down is silent;

Blood gushed from pig's head like opened hydrant;

On hell's ground pig wailed 'oink, oink damned tyrant';

    

Not so, just doing the job says Nellie:

Block all clots, we must from sausage entry;

Use cheese-cloth to ward off transmigration,

And stir, stir away, the coagulation;

That bloody blood; don't want it thickening

Tanti now is cleaning the chitterling

Intestines, yanked from monogastric pig;

She cleans filth, slime, fat from guts' swirling jig.

Faecal matter removed entirely;

Meg prepares the casings for black pudding.

Minds boggle, how folks clean well, heaps of gut;                                                   

Water from stand pipe in a small mud hut;

Rounds of guts she cleans meticulously well;

No tips from Department of public health;

Just tips from wise old heads to her did tell:

Cut the guts in equal lengths with clippers;

Rubbing hard with the pads of your fingers

Like when you wash clothes, cut mucous with lime;

Plenty salt and spoon to remove the slime;

Now turn inside out with this cane-trash stick;

Now clean all over again and again;

Blow up guts like balloon so clean and clear

Plunge in salted water for hours remain

For hours henceforth guts steep with salina;

While Marge grates sweet potatoes in tin bowl;

Adds thyme, sweet marjoram, Bajan sugar

With mixed shallots, and dash of clove powder;

Blends bloody ingredients make mixture

Loose consistency, casings will control;

Kay packs casings with mixture not tightly ;

Using funnel, fills casings not fully;

Just like grandma force-feeding her turkey;

Old-fashioned tool; but yet very sturdy;

Ties each casing's ends to make sausage roll;

Coils of sausages in bottom of pot

In boiling water, one hour to squat;

Until potatoes in natural casing

Are as firm to the touch, in the testing;

And are not busting their skins, and burning.

Little did these slaves know that their culinary arts

Would be a dish pleasing so many hearts;

Oinks, joints, blood, tears, of ingenuity

Have made unwanted pig parts, real soul-dish

Where the rich, the middle class and poor folks

Eat, black pudding and souse with much relish;

A bold statement that cut off racial yokes;

Where those folks on tiny coral island,

Gushing waters of true democracy.

Food, a way to most hearts in many ways;

Served on high days, and holidays,

Independence festivals, crop-over and,

Never at Easter, that would be gross.

Black pudding and souse still in great demand;

This soul-food, deep in culture and sucrose.