“Mi bawn and grow com si Jamaicans a eet ackee an saltfish an know sey a wi National dish”. For breakfast, lunch or dinner, nothing is as nice as a plate of ackee and saltfish served with a sweet yellow heart breadfruit. Or some soft boiled green bananas, piece a yellow yam, piece a dasheen and of course dumpling, dumpling, dumpling. If by chance you can’t do any better you can also serve it with rice. It’s just as nice.

So, what is this talk all of a sudden, coming out of Parliament of all places? Should ackee and saltfish be our National dish? Or was it, why is ackee and saltfish our National dish? Either way, after all this time we just know ‘sey’ saltfish is not produced here. With all the other madness that’s happening in our country, Parliament has nothing more important to discuss.

“Mek mi help them, crime is killing us (no pun intended), our children are leaving school illiterate (over 10 thousand just leave high school), those in the care of the government (like the ones at Armadale) are living under inhumane conditions, plenty more still begging and selling undisturbed on our roads (even though we have a Child Protection Act), most of our earning power has been eroded (the bauxite, sugar and banana industries), ‘nuff’ people have no jobs and many more are losing theirs daily. The list is too long, but that should keep them busy for a while.

Back to the ackee and saltfish, OK, so other countries grow or produce whatever constitutes their National dish. We grow the fruit ackee which is not very common in a lot of other countries. (Can’t resist, remember the Jamaican singer who pronounced to the world that him don’t play ackee, him eat it). Well yes, Jamaicans love to eat ackee, whether by itself, with saltfish or any ‘salt thing’. (Don’t know what is ackee, log on tomorrow and I’ll show and tell you about it.) Anyway, to answer the question, should ackee and saltfish be our National dish, I vote yes. Long time ackee marry saltfish anyway and I don’t believe in divorces.

Nuff love