The Great London Discovery!

So if you know me, you'd know that A: I LOVE food, and B: My family's Jamaican and I'm always going on and on about it. So I think that it's appropriate that my first blog be about both of these things. Pictured here is genip, a fruit that comes from a tropical tree which can be found in Jamaica. It's also known as honeyberry--which it kinda tastes like. I always like giving this to people who have never tried it before. Maybe it's my mean sense of humour--because let's face it--watching someone who's never heard of genip, try and open it and then try and eat it IS FUNNY. Or maybe it's my strange need of spreading all things Jamaican to, well, non Jamaicans. But in any case, if I see you, and I happen to have genip in my lunch bag, I'm totally coming after you.

Oh, and the bread beside it is my other fav, hard dough bread. There's no nutritional value in it at all, but it tastes like what I'd imagine Heaven to taste like--if it was a loaf of bread. I can't get enough of the stuff! I recently discovered a Caribbean store here in London, Ontario. London's a great city, don't get me wrong, but when I first moved here I was truly disturbed by the lack of Caribbean stores. I mean, who doesn't want some beef patties (spicey of course) and hard dough bread?? What? You don't? Psh!

So the discovery of this store was truly exciting! I enjoyed speaking with the owner, who's Chinese Jamaican. I instantly felt a bond with this man, since he kinda looked like what I imagined my grandfather to look like when he was younger, and because he owned a shop (just like my grandfather did in Jamaica). Granted, my grandfather was actually from Hong Kong, and didn't have the Jamaican accent that this store owner had--but close enough. Any ways, I thought it was interesting that the other customers took a slight interest in me and my Jamaican heritage. They asked me my last name, my mother's maiden name, where my parents were from, where they went to school, etc. In Pickering, people in a Caribbean store just want you to move out of the way and hurry up with your shopping (space is limited!). So this was a nice change.

Now go out and try some genip--and please, don't choke on the seeds. Kaythanks.