Article by media partner Cuisine Noir, the country’s first Black culinary lifestyle outlet since 2009 dedicated to connecting the African diaspora through food, drink and travel.
Growing up in Kingston gave a Jamaican chef the foundation to pursue a culinary career in New York City. What he learned in his family’s kitchens is what goes into the best Jamaican food. “Food was our love language. It’s how we showed how much we cared by cooking a beautiful pot of food. It taught me about patience, love and family,” says Andre Fowles.
The award-winning chef demonstrates his adoration of Jamaican cuisine in almost every dish he makes. His grandmother and mother passed on invaluable knowledge about Jamaican cooking techniques and flavors, as he prepared family meals with them.
“I can close my eyes today and remember my grandmother sitting down over a big bowl of oxtails. She used her knife to carefully clean the oxtail, removing all sinew and excess fat. She would wash the oxtails with vinegar and lime juice. She didn’t cut any corners. She took her time, while she listened to reggae music on her radio,” Chef Fowles recalls.
Evolution of My Jamaican Table
Life in a Kingston tenement yard came with challenges for single mom Patsy Davis and her four children. Fowles and his maternal grandmother, Mama Cherry, helped his mom by fixing family meals.
“So, it was a lot of struggles along the way, but food was something they always took the time to put a lot of love and attention into,” says Fowles. “Sunday dinners were like a ritual. They would get up early on Saturdays to go to the market to buy the best, freshest produce and protein they could find. They would take that back to the house and start to prepare Sunday meals, which were always such a treat.”
Jamaican cooking took place every day on the island where Fowles rarely ate out and could not call for meal delivery from fabulous restaurants like he can today in New York City. “It really instilled core family values, meaning we would spend a generous amount of time preparing all these meals, especially my grandmother,” the chef recounts.
Inspired by Mama Cherry’s love of cooking, Fowles pursued his passion for food, graduating from Jamaica’s HEART Trust Academy and New York City’s Culinary Institute of America. His professional training shifted his focus away from Jamaican food.
“Once you go to culinary school and learn the basics, you start to work at these great restaurants with great chefs. You learn their tendencies and their styles,” admits Chef Fowles. “You want to mimic them because you are so in awe. You want to cook like them and do everything like them because they are proven. Along the way, you try to find your own style.”
By the time Fowles became a consulting chef for Miss Lily’s, a highly-rated Jamaican restaurant with locations in New York City, Negril and Dubai, he had discovered his true calling. Artisan’s March 10 release of the chef’s debut cookbook lets home cooks and other food lovers in on the exciting treasures to be discovered in Jamaican cuisine.
“It’s going to be an adventurous ride. I was very intentional about the book, meaning I wanted a little bit of a lot of things to excite a lot of people,” says the Jamaican-born chef.
“My Jamaican Table: Vibrant Recipes from a Sun-Drenched Island” is a wonderful experience for anyone who wants to explore the flavors of the chef’s homeland. “If you are Jamaican and grew up eating Jamaican food, there’s something in it for you. This book is not just about oxtails, rice and peas and jerk chicken. You have a curried crab fried rice or a fish-and-chips-inspired escovitch sandwich. You have all these modern riffs on certain things we like to eat. For the non-Jamaicans, you get to learn about the traditional dishes as well,” Fowles instructs.
By Phyllis Armstrong
