Bill Clinton, Pavarotti and the Queen

Carolyn Cooper, Contributor

Last Wednesday, I went for lunch at an upscale restaurant in Kingston. The most appealing item on the menu was a shrimp pasta dish. I still value the food choices of my Seventh-day Adventist upbringing, so I don't eat anything from the sea that doesn't have fins and scales.

I asked the waiter, a very pleasant young man, if smoked marlin could be substituted for the shrimp. Yes, marlin do have fins and scales.

I took one bite of the meal and realised I'd got corned marlin. It salt so til! Like salt fish before it's soaked and boiled. The manager on duty checked to see if any salt had been added to the dish and reported that it seemed as if it was the cooking of the smoked marlin that had brought out the salt. I decided not to make a fuss. I just ate the salt marlin. I really don't like to waste food. Salt or no salt!

Now I've had that same dish at that same restaurant many times and it had never been that salty. I asked if I could get the phone number of the supplier of the marlin to see if the ingredients used in the smoking had changed. The helpful manager telephoned the supplier and we had a most instructive conversation. Mr Marlin got on his high horse and informed me that Bill Clinton, Pavarotti and the Queen of England had eaten his smoked marlin. Presumably, without complaint.

Obviously, my palate is much more sensitive than that of Mr Marlin's three celebrities. I use only a pinch of salt when I'm cooking. I'm definitely not courting high blood pressure. I restrained myself from asking Mr Marlin if he knew for sure that his high-profile clients had actually enjoyed his smoked marlin. Suppose Missis Queen had discreetly spat out her fish into her regal handkerchief? And what if Bill had been fantasising about another type of delicacy and his tongue hadn't even registered the taste of fish? Perhaps, only Pavarotti had enjoyed the smoky flavour.

Mr Marlin did, eventually, manage to say he was sorry I'd found the marlin too salty. He sounded genuine enough. He assured me that the process of smoking the fish hadn't changed in the 25 years he'd been doing it. But I still don't know what Bill Clinton, Pavarotti and Her Majesty the Queen of England had to do with my feedback on his salt fish.

NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN

One of the big problems with the suppliers of goods and services in Jamaica is that they routinely dismiss criticism from dissatisfied customers. A no nutten. You have no right to complain. Especially if it's something as subjective as the taste of food. It's just too bad for you if things don't turn out the way you expected.

Take, for instance, the perplexing case of coconut oil. I've recently discovered that none of the economical brands of coconut oil on the market is from Jamaica. You can get local, cold-pressed oil. But it's very expensive: about $900 for 500ml. The imported coconut oil costs around $300 for 500ml. A huge difference. There's cold-pressed oil from Belize, which is cheaper than ours. But it neither smells nor tastes as good. So I buy the expensive local oil.

I've recently started to take coconut oil to Hellshire for frying my fish. The food tastes so much better than when it's cooked in generic 'vegetable' oil. I made the mistake of taking a bottle of cold-pressed oil the first week. You must see the little toops that was left. After that, I decided it was going to be cheap coconut oil at the beach. And, to be honest, it really doesn't taste any different from the expensive oil.

But I just can't understand why we have to be importing coconut oil from Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago. I'm very suspicious of food with the label, 'product of Trinidad and Tobago'. I don't know for sure what that means. For example, the Regal brand of cashew is labelled as a product of the twin-island republic, but the cashews are actually imported from India.

I know that the majority of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago are of Indian origin. But, surely, this can't mean that cashews from India can be passed off as products of T&T! A December 9, 2011 article in the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday is very revealing: "According to a police report, Nigel Gopeesingh, the general manager of Regal Products of Freeman Road in St Augustine, reported that on December 3, a container with raw cashew nuts arrived at the port from India.

"On Wednesday, a man went to the port with false documents, cleared the container and drove off with the truck and container, the latter containing crates of raw cashew nuts. Gopeesingh went yesterday to clear the container, but no one could account for it being missing." I wonder if anyone can account for the false labelling of Regal cashews. And there's nobody to complain to about our imported coconut oil. Wi just salt!

Carolyn Cooper is professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.