Blog

Britain’s Next Great Five Star Chef is Chef Dominic Taylor, who is of Caribbean Heritage. His shot to fame followed the television premiere of reality chef competition Five Star Kitchen: Britain’s Next Great Chef competition on UK’s Channel 4. The series is now streaming on Netflix worldwide. Chef Dom’s Caribbean heritage derives from his parents – his mother is Jamaican and his father is St. Lucian. In a candid interview with Jamaican.com after the premiere of the show’s season finale, Chef Dom shares more about his Caribbean heritage, his passion for Caribbean cuisine and the launch of the first-ever Caribbean restaurant, the Good Front Room at the prestigious Langham hotel in London.

First of all congratulations on this monumental achievement. I was rooting for you from the start of the show. At any point in that competition did you feel like you weren’t going to make it?

You know what, most of the way through. I got there from day one and I was like, ‘what am I doing here’…I saw the other chefs and I saw what they were doing and I really thought, ‘Is my food good enough? Do I belong here?’

I remember initially that Michel Roux (chief judge of the competition) was not interested in your food. He was like, ‘this isn’t really five star’ and when you started to lead the brigade and you were preparing the curry goat dish he got really interested especially in the taste. 

You know what, as I watched the show back I get a different emotion from the one I got on day one. He said something to me on day one that instantly made me think that he really liked me…and he had somewhat researched me so he knew who I was as a chef. So there was almost like a secret smile with me. And Mike (other judge)..understood the cuisine from a different point of view. He knew what I’ve done with these ingredients, he knew how humble they were, he knew that the Caribbean community, at least in the UK, was really going to respond to this well. The amount of response I’ve had from Jamaica has blown my mind.

Awesome! Of all the dishes you prepared for the competition. Any one stands out as a challenge or a learning experience?

All of the dishes I’ve done in the competition and are now on the Good Front Room’s menu feel like they are all my babies because the menu is so small. They are all signature dishes. For example, the jerk chicken really speaks to me as a chef…putting jerk chicken on the menu doesn’t really feel  revolutionary because we’ve been eating jerk chicken every day since the beginning of time (chuckles). So, I think because I paired it with a plantain jam and it goes with plantain crisps and I made a dressing that’s with chilli and lemongrass, all of sudden, I’ve made this dish different. This feels different, this feels news, this feels like something I’ve never had before. So, I feel very proud of that.

And the ackee and saltfish cakes, this feels like something you’d have at your wedding. It’s colorful…tidy…it feels news but it still feels recognizable and nostalgic and all the things you want from ackee and saltfish. And you want something that you’re proud out and something to impress your guests.

Amazing, Caribbean food is definitely five star. Let’s talk about the name of your new restaurant, The Good Front Room. What was the inspiration for the name?

I thought about this room in my great grand aunt’s house that we were never allowed into but it was dressed so immaculately as if one day the queen was going to come and I know you know the room I’m talking about (laughs).

(Laughs) Yes, the room that you’re not supposed to go in and don’t touch anything. 

Yes, it was glamorous and when you look at the Langham, it is so fitting.

Wow! And especially when you tell that story, that is what will make the restaurant so successfully. Let’s shift gears a bit. When you visit Jamaica, is there a specific spot you must visit.

I like to travel and I’ve been to Jamaica about 6 times in my whole life. And there were so many other places I wanted to visit so I think 12 years had passed and before you knew it, I was like, ‘I haven’t been to Jamaica in so long.’ So when I came last year, I travelled the whole island but…in St. Elizabeth, my friend’s mom lives there, we had the best time. Really, really nice!

St. Elizabeth is definitely a lovely parish. Thanks for chatting with me Chef Dom and hope to see you in Jamaica soon!

Photo – Sauce Communications

The post A Chat with British Jamaican Chef Dominic Taylor About First-Ever Caribbean Restaurant at Prestigious Hotel in London appeared first on Jamaicans.com.

Professor Neville Ying reminded me of a United Nations quote about the expectation of education in an article published this week in the Jamaica Observer: “Learning to learn, learning to do, learning to live and work with others, and learning to be prepared for a future that is unpredictable and uncertain.” Every nation should adopt, guard, and protect this principle; Jamaica should be first on the list.

Attacks on the education system in an attempt to dumb down a nation should not be tolerated. Policies should be in place to protect and nurture the children who are the nation’s future.

I was surprised last year by the term “fully dunce” that appeared in newspapers across our beloved country. The newspapers referenced the origin of this dunce culture to a song released by artist Valiant entitled Dunce Cheque.  However, I realized in dancehall, the good comes with the bad. It will go away, I remarked. Not so, it seems. This week, as I scrolled down my social media page, I saw a picture of a student wearing what I thought was a photoshopped backpack with the word “dunce” written across it. Again, assuming the backpack image was photoshopped to include the word “dunce,” I downplayed the effectiveness of the picture. It would go away, I said. To my surprise, the backpack was genuine. It went on sale and sold out in Jamaica. This was an appalling reflection of what is considered “back to school.”

My logical question was, where is the government policy on business enterprise? Where is the police? The business sector that it impacts? And why are parents buying such an idiotic approach to school supplies? Though all the other questions were essential, I focused on the final one: Where are the parents? The actions of these parents purchasing a dunce backpack speak to a deeper problem in our nation. Which raises another question: Do parents care about education and their children? The ultimate goal of education is to prepare children to navigate life and contribute to society once they become older. What type of society? I used to think of only one kind of society: one that will advance our nation. The manufacturing and sale of this backpack and the purchase by parents is an attack on the foundation of our country, education system, and our promise, written in the National Pledge, where we each pledged: “the love and loyalty of our heart, the wisdom, and courage of my mind, the strength and vigor of my body in the service of my fellow citizens…to work diligently and creatively, Jamaica may….. may increase in beauty, fellowship, and prosperity, and play her part in advancing the welfare of the whole human race.”

There is a more profound concern for who parents are. Where do they learn? What did they learn? Who do they learn from? What kinds of belief, mentality, and behavior has emerged from the learnings? If the answers to these questions elicit further concern, what is next? It means the proper barriers (policies) are not in place, and any “storm of the dance hall” or “trade winds of adverse culturalism” can overtake the premise of good education, which is of further concern.

Now that the dunce culture is going to school, what is the purpose of education? Why bother sending children to school with a backpack claiming dunce? Since school’s premise is learning to learn, do, live, work with others, and be prepared for a future, why bother?

We have recently encountered heavy losses in education. Jamaica’s children had lost an estimated 1.3 billion in-class hours due to COVID-19 school closures. Many students could be accounted for even a year after the government opened for regular business. More highly qualified teachers are accepting jobs in foreign countries, opening the doors for less experienced, less skilled teachers out of teachers’ colleges. Economic conditions already hinder education, and schools’ infrastructure and environment are operating below expectations. The Ministry of Education and Youth’s mandate is to provide quality care and education in an innovative, inclusive, and enabling environment, thereby creating socially conscious and productive Jamaicans. But now, the dunce culture.

Let us discuss the expectations from dunce culturalism. According to the National Adult Literacy Survey, 70% of all incarcerated adults cannot read at a fourth-grade level, “meaning they lack the reading skills to navigate many everyday tasks or hold down anything but lower (paying) jobs.” Data supports that those without sufficient income earned by work are the most prone to committing crime. Therefore, dunce culture is another responsibility teachers must include in their already extensive list of stresses and another category of anti-education and pro-crime individuals getting ready for the streets. What will our country be with high illiteracy levels and anti-education, dunce culture?

The government is responsible for gutting out the creation of a dunce culture, or it is opening the door for higher property and violent crimes? Once this culture gets further into the psyche of our citizens, it becomes another shift that we will have no control over.  The value of education should be paramount in a country that is already struggling with how to educate the students and to keep the crime rate low.

Suggestions: Update school policies, giving principals more latitude to restrict activities that are counter-education practices but monitoring and empowering boards to use logic, reasoning, and democracy to make sound judgments. Academic, technical, and vocational education must be guarded and protected for the future of our country.

Jamaica is a free enterprise system, but monitoring is essential. The fiber of our economy, culture, politics, and education is built on advancing our children’s knowledge. Policies should be implemented within the laws to properly manage what is sold and introduced to families and children. Get back to the drawing board.

Finally, if the country feels that this problem began with an artist who introduced the dunce culture to the nation, find them and have him work with schools to start the recovery process. It is still young in the game of negative culturalism.

Photo – Deposit Photos

The post Dunce Culture is Root For Crime appeared first on Jamaicans.com.