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Filling the gap
Published: Thursday | March 8, 2012 Comments 0
Making use of discarded motor-car rims to make stoves, Icilda Harris prepares the tastiest of meals at her cookshop on Church Street in Kingston. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
Daviot Kelly, Staff Reporter
When one passes along Church Street in the vicinity of the Jamaica Agricultural Society's office, something smells good.
It's the cooking of Icilda Harris, known to all as 'Fatty' or 'Doreen'. She hails from Salisbury Plain in west rural St Andrew and her culinary skills were harnessed early.
"My mother taught me to cook," she recalled, later sharpening her skills at evening classes run by the late educator Daniel Warren-Kidd. The day The Gleaner stopped by her cookshop, the menu included cowfoot and beans and stewed pork.
"I used to do stew peas on a Monday, but customers started to request what they want on any day," she explained, checking on her pots. "Friday is always pork day but fried chicken is every day. That is a must!" Though she's adept at cooking anything, she loves to do 'tun' cornmeal, pork and fried chicken. Her prices range from $230 (small) to $350 (large).
Surprisingly, Fatty didn't start earning a living by cooking. She sold clothes in downtown Kingston at first but it became tedious.
That voice
"Sometimes you have the nice, clean clothes and when you hear the cops coming, you have to pack them up and run," she laughed. One day around 1998, while passing the venue that would be her cookshop, she heard 'a voice' telling her she could start selling stuff there.
"There wasn't anybody there around me. I don't know who said it or where I got the idea," she remembered. So she asked about renting the space. "There were a group of us who asked about the space and the owner decided to put our names in a hat and whoever's name came out would get it." Call it divine intervention, but she was chosen. Fatty bought her oranges, biscuits, cigarettes and other goods by selling empty bottles, selling out of a 'mackerel bucket'. And business was good. But her customers started wanting more, so she started selling Tastee patties.
"But the people said they wanted cooked food, too, so I started doing soup. And from there I started doing more things," she explained. She put in the counters, cupboards and fixed up the place to look like a shop. But her cooking goes mobile after sundown as Fatty sometimes heads down to the Ward Theatre environs to sell more of her gastronomic delights. She loads up her pots on a handcart and sells to the 'night owls'. Sometimes she gets home in the early hours, so breakfast isn't always on the menu the next day.
"But sometimes I will do salt-fish fritters, callaloo and salt fish, and definitely porridge," she explained. Consumers of all ages have tasted her pot and even though this is a business, Fatty is not going to be selfish.
"Sometimes the schoolchildren don't really have it, and when they ask if they can get something, I give. I prefer to help them than the big, grown men who can work for themselves," she reasoned.
Her place is also popular with the bus drivers, a quick stop for some sustenance after a long day behind the wheel. Unlike some business people, Fatty said she has no trouble from extortionists. In fact, the residents look out for her because she treats them well.
"Sometimes they come in and say, 'Bwoy mi nuh eat nutten from mawnin enuh', and you know what they mean." she joked. "I can't give all of them, you know, but I try to help out."
Published: Thursday | March 8, 2012 Comments 0
Making use of discarded motor-car rims to make stoves, Icilda Harris prepares the tastiest of meals at her cookshop on Church Street in Kingston. - Norman Grindley/Chief Photographer
Daviot Kelly, Staff Reporter
When one passes along Church Street in the vicinity of the Jamaica Agricultural Society's office, something smells good.
It's the cooking of Icilda Harris, known to all as 'Fatty' or 'Doreen'. She hails from Salisbury Plain in west rural St Andrew and her culinary skills were harnessed early.
"My mother taught me to cook," she recalled, later sharpening her skills at evening classes run by the late educator Daniel Warren-Kidd. The day The Gleaner stopped by her cookshop, the menu included cowfoot and beans and stewed pork.
"I used to do stew peas on a Monday, but customers started to request what they want on any day," she explained, checking on her pots. "Friday is always pork day but fried chicken is every day. That is a must!" Though she's adept at cooking anything, she loves to do 'tun' cornmeal, pork and fried chicken. Her prices range from $230 (small) to $350 (large).
Surprisingly, Fatty didn't start earning a living by cooking. She sold clothes in downtown Kingston at first but it became tedious.
That voice
"Sometimes you have the nice, clean clothes and when you hear the cops coming, you have to pack them up and run," she laughed. One day around 1998, while passing the venue that would be her cookshop, she heard 'a voice' telling her she could start selling stuff there.
"There wasn't anybody there around me. I don't know who said it or where I got the idea," she remembered. So she asked about renting the space. "There were a group of us who asked about the space and the owner decided to put our names in a hat and whoever's name came out would get it." Call it divine intervention, but she was chosen. Fatty bought her oranges, biscuits, cigarettes and other goods by selling empty bottles, selling out of a 'mackerel bucket'. And business was good. But her customers started wanting more, so she started selling Tastee patties.
"But the people said they wanted cooked food, too, so I started doing soup. And from there I started doing more things," she explained. She put in the counters, cupboards and fixed up the place to look like a shop. But her cooking goes mobile after sundown as Fatty sometimes heads down to the Ward Theatre environs to sell more of her gastronomic delights. She loads up her pots on a handcart and sells to the 'night owls'. Sometimes she gets home in the early hours, so breakfast isn't always on the menu the next day.
"But sometimes I will do salt-fish fritters, callaloo and salt fish, and definitely porridge," she explained. Consumers of all ages have tasted her pot and even though this is a business, Fatty is not going to be selfish.
"Sometimes the schoolchildren don't really have it, and when they ask if they can get something, I give. I prefer to help them than the big, grown men who can work for themselves," she reasoned.
Her place is also popular with the bus drivers, a quick stop for some sustenance after a long day behind the wheel. Unlike some business people, Fatty said she has no trouble from extortionists. In fact, the residents look out for her because she treats them well.
"Sometimes they come in and say, 'Bwoy mi nuh eat nutten from mawnin enuh', and you know what they mean." she joked. "I can't give all of them, you know, but I try to help out."