The chef and entrepreneur talks steamed snapper, jerk chicken and 100% proof Jamaican rum. Read full article by Victoria Stewart at the Evening Standard.
Having grown up in the Jamaican countryside, in the parish of Clarenden, Levi Roots didn't visit a big city in his homeland until 1984, when he arrived in Kingston at the age of 26. “It was how I’d expected, even though I’d never been there before. That might sound odd but I’d already lived in London by that point, and here in the UK memories of Jamaica was all everyone talked about - as it was all that we had to cling onto,” remembers the chef and entrepreneur. “We were trying to adapt very quickly.”
At school, Roots says no one liked to admit if they were from the countryside “as everything cool was about Kingston and it was the home of reggae and our heroes. So for the diaspora over here, it was all about this great place that you’d hear about - the music being played in the streets [that] concentrated on what was happening in the ghettos of Kingston, where Bob Marley was from, and Jimmy Cliff and so on.” Having developed this vision of the famous city, when Roots eventually visited, he remembers it being “strange - but not unnatural at all - because it was like I was walking into a picture that I already knew.”
For Roots, the aroma of the city plays a big part in his attachment to it, but mostly “it is about the people. Kingston people have a particular way about them which is different from any other part of Jamaica. And understanding Kingston people is understanding what Jamaica is about. I say that, knowing that Jamaica is bigger than Kingston, but because whatever Jamaica has inspired around the world has come from the happenings from this place.” Today, he returns to his favourite city about four times a year to explore recipes and write his books
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