Sian’s Caribbean Kitchen: Honoring My Grandmother’s Legacy Through Cooking​

When I got a phone call that my grandmother was in the hospital dying, it felt like a bad joke. It was less than a year after the sale of her Florida house was finalised. One of the last times I spent with her was photographing us making black cake together. A large part of that documentation was an effort to manage my feeling like I was losing another part of a heritage that I frequently feel only marginally entitled to.

I was in denial about her dying. I left work and dragged myself home, still partially convinced that it was just a bad joke. Despite my best efforts at denial, it was not a joke. I had a month to mentally and emotionally prepare myself to return to Jamaica for my grandmother’s funeral or be forever on the receiving end of pointed stares and whispers.

I tried my best to get out of it with half-baked excuses. I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t want to leave my apartment empty for that long. It was too close to the end of the year. I got on the plane anyway. Returning to Jamaica, a culture partly mine but only vaguely familiar, felt surreal. But the week forced me to confront the privilege and comfort I enjoyed at the expense of my grandmother and mother. Articulating the feeling of limbo to my mother felt like an exercise in futility, but I imagine other first-gen children know exactly what I’m talking about. I wanted to feel at ease surrounded by family, speaking a language I’d heard all my life, but mostly I felt awkward and out of place, like a tourist in my own home. Amidst the chaos, a common thread emerged: food. Every day began, and ended, in the kitchen, gathered around family. It helped me feel closer to my grandmother, like I was carrying on her legacy.

Weeks later, back in Pittsburgh, I’m reminded of the comfort of being on the island. The daily Facetime calls with family and the taste of familiar food always bring me back to an absurdly steep little hill just outside of Negril.