Ball o’ fire. Pt. 1.

30.4.23.

Good morning. What you drinkin’? Ever had pepper tea? It is deeeeelicious.

Gently simmer a small pot of goat milk with one whole scotch bonnet pepper (don’t cut it up) for two days and one night then leave it to cool. Remove the pepper from the milk which should now be a rich cream-colour. Add a sweetener of choice…honey is the best and…awright, just joking, I thought I was faking a recipe, pulling your leg, oh, hold on a second there, apparently pepper milk is A Thing! (I haven’t seen any recipes with goat milk and a whole scotch bonnet though.)

I swear, if I had a big plot of land, I’d grow wealth with a pepper business. If there’s one thing I’ve observed is this…no matter how bankrupt the world’s economy gets, two things sell. Drugs (which includes alcohol) and pepper. I ain’t want nothing to do with drugs. Pepper, on the other hand…hmmm…I used to be able to consume a nice, moderate splotch of it. Now, I can only add a drop, the size of an atom, to my food but if it can make moolah for me, I’ll pay a pepper-loving taster. You want the job?

Think of the possibilities, my friend. There are hundreds of varieties of peppers. I can concoct all kinds of unusual food combinations with different peppers.

The most popular in my lovely native land are the wiri-wiri, scotch bonnet, mari-wiri, bird peppa, to name a few. Blended with garlic and other ingredients, it has helped the humblest of women in Guyana to make a living. In every single open-air market, without fail, you will see at least one vendor with a stand selling bottles of fiery sauce.

Why do I have pepper on my mind?

My first big brother in the UK texted me a few days ago. “Ask mummy if man fo’ bad is the same as ball o’ fire.”

She said, “Yes, it is.”

Man fo’ bad is an expression I’ve only heard older countryside villagers use. I’ve twisted my brain into every conniption to figure out how to translate this expression for you. It’s usually spoken with a question mark and an exclamation mark, as if to say, in a rhetorical way, man can be sooo bad, eh?! It could also mean, man was made to be bad; man is simply naturally bad.

At least, that’s my understanding of it.

As for ball o’ fire!

Our Nanee had a ball o’ fire tree in her garden a few feet away from the kitchen steps. The peppers it bore were so hot even the sun retreated behind clouds when it spied them glowing red amongst the dark green leaves. The rain would make a sizzling sound when it hit the peppers and steam would rise like white ghost.

Okay, okay, yes, I’m exaggerating, but that’s what pepper does to the brain, man. It excites the senses, brings on the liveliest conversations, and it makes men indulge in telling hypepperbolic tales that can go like this: “I eat a pepper so hot, I see Nina, Pinta, Santa María right in fronta me.”

Yep! This hot little spice can drive people to have visions. It made Columbus, Vasco da Gama, the Spanish, the Portuguese and most of Europe, go mad. “It is amazing how food has been at the center of so much corruption,” my best friend in the Whole Wide World said on Thursday evening when we were chatting about the madness of trade and domination.

No powerful monopoly could control this spice though. It spread far and wide. India, Africa, and some Asian cultures blended it skillfully into their dishes.

Pepper, having travelled all over the world, returned to South America and the Caribbean with our Indian and African ancestors. I say returned because…guess what! Research shows that peppers were being used in South and Central America, and Mesoamerica, centuries before it had reached elsewhere.

This makes me think of pepperpot, an amazing dish given to us by the indigenous people, the Amerindians of Guyana, South America. The pepperpot is a delicious dark-brown stew of meat or fish with a variety of flavours mingling in just one pot.

It’s been a little secret, known mainly to Guyanese at home and Abroad and to our friends in other countries.

Recently online, amongst younger people of various cultures, there’s been keen interest in our pepperpot. It could be the constant sharing of recipes by Guyanese online or…I could be wrong…interest was whipped up after that U.K. tv chef visited Guyana. Y’know that tv chef who cusses like a sailor…no, scratch that, I don’t want to offend sailors who don’t cuss. Y’know that tv chef who cusses like Captain Haddock? He landed on our shores in 2020 and showed the world many of our dishes, including pepperpot.

Looking at the foodies online licking up pepperpot makes me happy. Food is one of the most rewarding gifts we can share. It erases borders, links us across seas and cultures, much as pepper has done.

Okay my friend, I’m skipping off to dream about the pepper farm. Have a lovely two weeks until the next Sunday. Eat good food and take care of you. Plenty luuuve, neena.

P.S.,A word of caution, be careful how you bite into the hottest peppers. You can land up in hospital. No joke, look it up.