“We Bakes”
Bakes by Rico
For those of you who do not know or play you don’t know…The item of food you see above is the old time bajan delicacy known as bakes!
I recently spoke to the issue of bakes being missing from the breakfast menu of the official Crop Over launch recently staged by the NCF,
They were some disparaging remarks dropped some people (would not call Asiba name to embarrass him) talking bout “bakes got in cholesterol”.
For years we bajan children were raised up eating bakes as a staple meal, all of a sudden we look at them and scoff and talk bout “cholesterol”.
As far as I know bakes are made with flour water sugar and salt, cholesterol is not one of the ingredients.
What has in more cholesterol than Kentucky Fried Chicken but we eat that and “skin we teet” and say it is “finger licking good”. Well we need to start eating bakes and licking we fingers too.
The problem with we is that we have no respect for we own, that is why our food import bill is so damn high. Case in point, tamarinds! When I was growing up you would just go under a tree and pick up tamarinds.
Nowadays if we want tamarinds we go in price mart and pick them up, imported from Hong Kong complete with Chinese writing on the box.
We will start appreciating bakes when they are imported in a fancy box from Japan and available at Price Mart.
The bakes you see above were made for me by my son Rico, his grandmother taught him how to make them, he does ”Food and Nutrition” at Alexandra school they did not teach him how to make them there. Bakes need to be placed on the cooking syllabus of Bajan schools.
This is one of the reasons for the constant decline of the good old time bajan morals of our society. We need to go back looking out for our neighbors, we need to go back to roasting breadfruit and for crying out loud, we need to go back to eating bakes!
P.S; I ate the bakes above and they were delicious!
Boyce is leaving the computer licking his fingers…
If during the reading of this blog there is any thing I might have written which might have incensed or offended you, GET OVER IT! There are many things I read and hear in the media on a daily basis that I don't like either. SO DEAL WITH IT! You are welcome to leave your comments though. Make sure and come back yuh hear !!!...
April 21st, 2008 at 11:38 am
well i hope dem aint had no KFC at the brunch cause dat got in tummuch cholesterol and trans fats. Wait Bakes got in trans fats too? i feel so ya kno.
Trans-fats real bad fa boy. Dem worser than regular fats cause well cause dem got a harder name an dem duz get single out from de regular fats. you kno ya duz only get single out if ya fairly igrant or somebody trying ta unfair ya an i doan feel we trying to unfair trans fats.
man a lot a places banning trans fats so I cud only assume he is like a big muguffy dat trying to come in an upset de place. cause ya duz only get ban when ya igrant unless ya singing something bout de government.
de people really frighten fa trans fats so dem duz got signs now pun the prooduct package saying no trans fats. Even products like bananas an grapes dat din neva had in trans-fats duz got labels saying now with no trans-fats added juss so ya doan discriminate against dem in de supermarket.
i think ya duz get trans-fats from de oil doah so if you mekkin you bakes in oil it only serves that the bakes gine got in trans fats which along wid de cholesterol is like you is a opening batsman at kensington back in de day facing Marshall and Garner. Ya doan stan a chance.
So tell you son stop trying to kill you wid de bakes wid de transfats and cholesterol cause I duz enjoy this blog and I aint wanta get up one morning an see the Nation headline read “boyce brutalized by bakes. Police search for cholesterol and trans-fats duo last seen heading to KFC”.
So try an tell de boy to try an mek you a fruit salad or sumting so when the morning come.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:38 pm
the whole question of bakes raises the question of our eating habits and our healthy or un-healthy lifestyles.
but hey man i dont want to get too preachy preachy about this subject.
just to say that we need to pay close attention to what and how we eat –when and where too and how much
for the record
i never like bakes—could not get them eat
i never did like cou-cou either and i dislike flying fish
so i guess my bajan status might be questioned
for the record
I have never bought kentucky fried chicken
if kentucky and cheffette had to depend on me or people like me
they would not last a month in business
tamarinds -oh i love bajan tamarinds, bajan bananas,
bajan oranges and bananas are the best tasting in the world—why we dont grow more and sell overseas is a mystery to me.
i had the benefit of growing up in town as well as the country and i ate a lot of fruits in both the country and town—-fruits from st vincent , dominica and st lucia–in town-
bajan fruits from the country included : goose berries, guavas, sour-sop, golden apples, ackees, grapes, fat pork, almonds, mangoes, oranges and bananas.
other delicacies were sugar cane from the fields, coconuts, sugar apples, bajan cherries -the highest concentration of vitamin c in the world, passion fruit and pears and paw-paws
–just to name a few
any how doan let jdid scare yuh with
talk about trans fat and bakes
i know a lot o people who eat them in my boy days and they were old then and they are still living now
jdid might have a point though because if you eating and not exercising and burning it off you might be in trouble
the old people used to work hard, walk everywhere they going, wuk-up nuff to tuk band music and wuk-up whenever they felt like. i have seen some old women hice-up their clothes and just start wukking up just so and all they were hearing was the music in the head. so the old people wuk hard : they din used to catch a zr van to go from the corner of deacons road to carlton supermarket as i see people–young lazy-ass people doing nowadays
wow ! -this was a long comment
April 21st, 2008 at 5:56 pm
may i add that bakes is slave food-(an imitation of baked bread)
i couldn’t let that pass
pudding and souse is also slave food-(discarded entrails and offals from the pig -thrown away by the slave masters and put to use by the slaves)
cou-cou– is slave food or duck food as some people call it-(same reason as above)
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:57 am
asiba…wuh crap yuh talking about bakes, pudding and souse, and cou-cou being slave food?
Oh by the way, the use of vegetable oils have removed trans fats, hence considerably reducing cholestrol, so good ole’ bajan bakes are as good as, and even better than any other processed\artificial breakfast.!!!
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:34 am
if is slave food we ancestors should have their own cooking show cause to tek leffovers and cast offs and mek it into stuff as sweet as pudding n souse and coucou them fellas was champions!
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm
yes jdid and ken
as black people our abilty to survive given any circumstance would have given rise to the cultural pratices as seen in the way we prepare foods and the way we do other things such as dress and talk. we as slaves were deprived of everything: our music, our names, our identity, our dignity, our pride, our self-confidence, our history, our lineage, our EVERYTHING. slavery was not easy at all ! –but we had to survive
music : we developed tuk music based on imitation of the british army bands that played the marches , the landship came out of a similar experience.
our foods: as explained already the slaves used the leftovers from the kitchen of the great house to develop pudding and souse for example. the slave master had no use for the hog head and feet or the belly so the slaves use them.
the way we dress: imitation of the slave master’s style of dress which was quite unlike how we dressed in africa— a tropical climate. we used all the slave masters old handme-downs which of course were old jackets and ties and big old dresses
so we did things to survive whether it was with food to keep the physical intact
dress for cover of the same or music to satisfy the psychological. it shows the resilience of the black man
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
GOOD FOR YOU PETE, I ADVOCATE THE USE OF BAKES FOR BREAKFAST AS WELL. I AGREE THAT WE NEED TO RETURN TO OUR ROOTS. I MAKE BAKES EVERY WEEKEND. MY SON DAMIAN LOVES THEM. IN BROOKLYN WE GO ETHNIC ALL THE WAY!. CORNMEAL PORRIDGE, COOKED BISCUIT, FISH CAKES, YOU NAME IT WE BAJANS LOVE IT. SOME OF THE PEOPLE FROM THE OTHER ISLANDS AND THE LOCAL AMERICANS LOVE OUR FOOD, WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO DON’T LOVE IT OURSELVES.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:16 am
we need to eat less
we need to healthy
we need to pay attention to what we eat
all the surveys show obesity is on the rise among bajans at home and in new york
SLAVERY IS responsible for where we find ourselves now
i can justify this statement but i wrote a long comment on this a minute ago and lost it
will justify the statement
July 17th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
look wunna keep following all these europenas talking bout wha good fa we.
we ain’t born in europe in them mess up climates. we born here and survived
on bakes and souce and all them things for years. don’t get fool and try to live like
some of these other people ya hear.
June 4th, 2010 at 11:23 am
lol sorry to be rude but dem bakes look bad ah boy in meh class name rico so it kinda funny lol!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 13th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Um, Can I get the recipe for those bakes? They look delicious and bring back a nostlagic feeling of growing up and my Pops frying me some sweet bakes in the morning. Whether it has come about through slavery times or whether it’s high in cholesterol, I cannot erase the fact that it was part of my upbringing and feel attached to it culturally. So, everything in moderation, and happy eating! Long live Bajan Bakes!!!! Um, and yeah, can I get the recipe?