The Caribbean · Volume 10, Pimento Smoke, the Maroon Fire and the Ital Table
Mannish water
Jamaica
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour 30
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Mannish water
Serves 6 to 8 . About 1 hour 30 minutes
Ingredients
An outline, not yet a recipe: the tradition's method with its ingredients named but not weighed. Quantities are being added from sources inside the tradition, lead dishes first.
- 900g (2lb), with the feet goat head
- goat offal
- 450g (1lb), yellow yam, diced yam
- 1, peeled and diced potato
- 3, sliced with the skin on green banana
- 1 cup flour, worked into spinners dumplings
Method
- Make a soup from goat head and offal with yam, potato, green banana and dumplings.
Notes
Traditionally served to the groom on his wedding night and widely believed an aphrodisiac, and also served at wakes and large gatherings.
A claim that it has been part of Maroon celebration culture for over three hundred years is unverified and this chapter holds it cautiously rather than asserting it.
What a modern chef changes
A two-stage stock, clarified
Method
- Build the stock in two separate stages, offal and bones roasted first for real depth before the long simmer.
- Clarify through a chinois into a genuinely clear broth rather than the cloudy result a single long boil gives.
- Poach the dumplings separately and add them only at the point of serving, so they hold their shape rather than dissolving into the pot over the soup's long cook.