Page 48 - 10th Annual International Charles Town Maroon Conference and Festival Magazine

June 2018 Charles Town Maroon International Conference Magazine

Annette Brown the head cook for the

Annual International Maroon Conference & Festival talks about
Maroon food

An interview with Flavius Laidley

Good day Annette, how are you?
Good day, I am well, thank you.

Annette, are you from Charles Town?
Yes I am from Charles Town and I have lived here all
my life.

What was Charles Town like when you were a child
and what was it like growing up there?
Being a child in Charles Town, it was very adven-
turous, back in the days you could have a nap in the
middle of the street without being interfered by any
vehicles. It was fun going into the farm to reap cane
and other fruits in comparison to now. I would say
growing up in Charles Town was very much adven-
turous. And I liked it!

Tell us about your family Did your grandmother teach you to cook?
I am coming from a small family, which I am grown Well actually, I learned a lot from my grandmother,
with my grandparents from I was 3 months, they were she was that type of person, she was a kind of person
both farmers and we were maintained through who would cook nothing and you would enjoy it, from
farming, they cultivate and sell whatever crops they nothing she would make lovely soups and you go to
produced. It was not upbringing like now, because we bed with your belly full.
had to go to school by foot, sometimes barefooted,
books in our hands, back then at the time in Was this Maroon food?
comparison to now. Most times it would be Maroon food, because back
Sometimes it was real hard, knowing that you have then being a poor family from a farming background,
to go to school and you get 1 hour lunch break, I would we would have a whole lot of vegetables and very rare
have to leave from school and go on the farm to have we would have chicken on a Sunday, so most times we
lunch especially on a day that they have Workings and would have our “RunDunn” go to the river catch our
then you would have to leave from there back to “Jamga” and coconut and that’s it. So most time it
school and you cannot be late. would be Maroon Foods.
We would have to do our chores in the mornings
and you would have to be on time for school because Was food and eating an important part of your family
if you are late you would get a whipping at school and life?
another whipping when you get back home. Yes it was, because for the most part we were taught
I think growing up in that time helped us to be to eat healthy, and our foods should be well done,
independent and reliable. clean environment, so the whole cooking thing in the
family was very important.

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