Making Callaloo in Detroit

Five Workers Report on How the Deal Really Went Down

ix  Preface I grew upeating callaloo as if it was daily fare in the city of Detroit, along with schtew chicken, pelau, sanchocho, and listening to all the calypso Lords, as well as Latin jazz master Tito Puente. How does that happen? Imagine dancing on the Bob-Lo boat to someone among us singing the latest calypso tune when the boat band isn’t playing. Who here even knows about callaloo or buljol or bakes? Or wining up on Ole Years night? Or any of that stuff that happens when a few outsiders look at a new and strange world, wondering how to fit in and don’t quite. I was thrilled back then to eat American food: fried chicken, pizza, real spaghetti. Is that American? But the taste of the foodMamaservedneverleftmymouth,myheart,mysoul.Myparents, both from Trinidad and Tobago, Mama by way of St. Vincent, were staunch island people. They never became naturalized Americans, mainly because Daddy wouldn’t give up citizenship to where his navel string was buried. And they kept up their culture through food and all that happens around the meal. These stories are not an attempt to capture my culture through x  Lolita Hernandez food. I didn’t try. This just happened. Call it gut memory. Stuff stuck in the craw, can’t expel, still burping up the flavors of real peppa sauce, and my beloved bacalao buljol and bakes. Callaloo is a metaphor like noother for all of this.Astewof dasheenleaves,ochroe,andsomekind of protein—crab or salt pork—and maybe some coconut, served over rice, or not. Callaloo is not for everyone; it is a deep dark-green slime of unidentifiable flavors, a trip to an unfamiliar bush, a blending of surprises. A trip to another world right here in the D. Enjoy. Making Callaloo in Detroit ...