Confessions of an Ackee Eater
Author:
Jeffrey Laign "Psst." The man in the red, green and gold knit cap beckoned to me from the sidewalk of a south Florida strip mall. "You waan some ackee, mon?"
"I thought you told me you didn't sell ackee?" Only moments before, the wrinkled, goateed proprietor had informed me that under no circumstances did his West Indian grocery store carry ackee, a delicious Jamaican fruit banned in the United States.
"I tot maybe you de police."
I followed the man back inside the store, and he produced from under a counter a can of precious ackee. Found nearly everywhere in Jamaica - it's the national fruit - ackee has a rich, nutty flavor and the look and texture of scrambled eggs. When cooked up with salt cod, it's an entrie fit for an earl.
Ackee is a very important food in Jamaican cuisine, says Noel Mignott, Jamaica's deputy director of tourism.
U.S. health officials, however, forbid domestic importation or sale of ackee, whose seeds may be poisonous if the fruit is under- or overripe. But that doesn't stop ackee-addicted tourists like me from sampling the dish wherever it is served in Jamaica.
Colorful History
Like breadfruit, another Caribbean staple, ackee was introduced to the islands by the infamous Capt. William Bligh, of Bounty fame. By the late 1700s, Blighia sapida was growing profusely throughout Jamaica.
Native to West Africa, the ackee tree produces glossy leaves and scarlet, pear-shaped pods which, when ripe, split to reveal up to three wrinkled yellow fruits. Because the fruit is so colorful, ackee has become the subject of folklore, songs and paintings in Jamaica
and elsewhere. An old Jamaican proverb, for instance, compares ackee to a face that stares out at you in the market.
In each ackee fruit, or aril, is a glossy black seed, which contains two potent poisons: hypoglycin-A and hypoglycin-B. Ingesting the seeds results in what Jamaicans call vomiting sickness. The malady, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, may culminate in convulsions, coma and death. There is no accurate and practical chemical method to isolate the toxins.
Nonetheless, Jamaican cooks have been isolating the toxins for centuries. First they detach the seeds and clean the fruit thoroughly. Next, they boil the fleshy aril before adding it to sauces, soups or stews.
Not good enough, says the FDA. A spokesman for the agency says that ackee is banned in the United States because of the possibility that green or overripe fruits or seeds could get into cans during commercial canning.
Can't Live Without It
The ban, however, does not prevent hundreds of ackee lovers from attempting to smuggle the fruit into the States each year by swapping labels with those on cans of legal Jamaican food imports, such as callaloo or ginger.
Lorraine, a Jamaican-born secretary who lives in Miami, freezes ackee in zip-lock bags, which she wears beneath her dress to fool airport metal detectors. I grew up eating this stuff, and I don't intend to stop now, she says. A taste of ackee is like a taste of Jamaica.
Lorraine's actions are illegal - but understandable to people like me. Once you have tasted ackee, you simply can't live without it. Your best bet for enjoying it, though, is to visit any of a number of restaurants in Jamaica that serve it. And serve it they do - in creative and unexpected ways: as appetizers, over pasta - even on pizza.
Or if you're staying in one of Jamaica's many kitchen-equipped villas, suites and condos, you can try cooking it yourself. Stay on the safe side and buy canned ackee. Chances are minimal that poisons made it through the canning process.
Now pour yourself a Red Stripe and get ready to cook. The recipe couldn't be simpler to prepare.
This is Jamaica's national dish, and a worthy one, with its beguiling contrast of flavors, says Norma Benghiat, who included a version of this recipe in her book, Traditional Jamaican Cookery (Penguin Books, 1985).
Posted online 02/01/99.
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