Hartley Neita, Contributor

We did not have electricity in the village of my youth, So food and drink were kept chilled in a box lined with sheets of tin and large enough for a 50-pound block of ice.

The ice was covered with sawdust to keep it from melting too fast. It lasted two days and was replaced with another block purchased from a truck which travelled the 60 miles from Kingston through my village to Mandeville every other day.

Because meat could not be frozen and the ice truck broke down from time to time, each day's meal was from a planned pattern my mother created years before. You could go to sleep for days and wake, and seeing the food on the table know what day of the week it was

Pick a day. Sunday?

Well, except when there were visitors and home-bred, corn-fed chicken was the special treat, Sunday lunch was curried mutton and rice and peas. At dusk, Sunday supper was mutton soup made from the bones and the grizzle, with diced carrots and cho-cho, and spiced with thyme and onion. The mutton was from the goats which were reared by a small farmer in the village and slaughtered by the village butcher; while the cho-cho, thyme and beans were bought from another neighbour. My father grew the carrots in his backyard garden.

"Lord Jesus, love me soul. The goat bone marrow sweet, so-till."

Pick another day. Thursday?

Thursday's supper was fried dumplings and fritters with hot chocolate tea.

Hot chocolate tea

"Careful how you drink the chocolate tea," my mother always warned us. "Blow on the surface to cool the hot fat floating on top. Then take a small sip. You hear me child? If you gulp it fast, the fat will burn you' top lip and give it a blister. Same thing a-tell you. Why you ears so hard, eh?"

"Feesh! Feesh! Fresh feesh! Fresh time now."

Friday was the day the fish man rode his bicycle to the village from Rocky Point at the bottom of Clarendon. He had a box filled with snapper, grunt, cutlass and jack-fish caught in the ocean deep by the men of Rocky Point who rowed their canoes daily, bravely, far beyond the horizon. So fried fish was Friday evening's dish.

Tuesday was liver and bananas one week and cornpone flavoured with chips of salted pork the next. And when ackee was in season, she cooked it with salted codfish.

Dessert was a very, very, special treat. There was home-made ice cream once every month on Sunday evenings, sweeter because of the strength it took each member of the family to turn the handle as it froze hard. My father got first taste every time from the ice cream bucket's fan.

"When I become a father, I'm going to eat ice cream every day, and I will lick the fan. Nobody taking that pleasure from me," I always mumbled under my breath.

Nobody could bake like my mother. Wednesday was the time when the wood coal was fanned flame-red, the butter and sugar and flour rubbed to a smooth paste, flip-flopped with beaten eggs, then mixed with currants to bake a cake; or sweet potatoes were grated or bread soaked in sweetened milk and steamed into a pudding with the fringe-froth spread on top.

Beef soup on Saturdays

Want to pick another day? What about Saturday? Well, Saturday's lunch was beef soup time, full of pieces of yam, banana and plenty of vegetables, while Saturday's supper was bulla and pear with a big enamel mug of lemonade to wash it down.

Saturdays' lunch and supper made it the best day of the week.

A Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers.

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