A traditional savory-sweet Easter dish in Jamaica consists of soft cheese between two slices of a spicy bread that has been moistened with fruit.
As Easter draws near, sparkling buns scented with cinnamon and nutmeg fill glass pastry cases in restaurants and lunch counters throughout the globe, while vibrantly colored tinned cheese lines the shelves of Caribbean stores. As a child growing up in a Caribbean family, I remember the moment when bread and cheese were made—even though warmer weather and blossoming flowers are the formal signs of spring.
It can seem strange to combine sweet spicy buns (which aren't really "buns" but pieces of bread) with a savory soft yellow cheese at first. Its salty-sweet appeal, nevertheless, is reminiscent of charcuterie staples like cheese and jam or chocolate-covered pretzels.
Glazed candied cherries and dried raisins, sweetened with a mixture of brown sugar and molasses, agave nectar, or guava jam, adorn each slice of a shiny spiced bun. Candied citrus peel, often called "mixed peel," is another option. To make it seem even browner, stews often employ browning sauce, a syrupy liquid spice comprised of burned brown sugar and water. A dark stout beer gives spiced buns their distinctive height in many recipes.
The savory cheese that lies between the buns is best thought of as a hybrid of mild cheddar and American cheese. Today, this delicacy is made using Tastee Cheese, a distinctive processed cheese that slices like cold butter.
As syrupy-sweet ginger sorrel and alcoholic black cake are to the winter holidays, so too is the centuries-old Jamaican ritual of bread and cheese with Easter. You can get your hands on it any time of year, but the Christmas season is when it really comes into its own.
It becomes ingrained in your mind at a young age. “It’s a highlight in Jamaica... you can smell it - the aroma is just different, the texture is different,” remembers Steven Clarke, VP of marketing for Golden Krust, the first Caribbean restaurant franchise in the US. In 1949, Hawthorne & Sons Bakery was established in the "Border" area that connected the south-western parishes of St. Elizabeth and Westmoreland in Jamaica. Clarke's grandparents, Mavis and Ephraim Hawthorne, were its founders. Golden Krust's spiced bun recipe, which has been utilized for over 70 years, was devised by the two of them.
Clarke states, "I remember seeing Papa [my grandfather] just standing beside the line touching every bun," demonstrating the significance of bun texture. Buns should be thick and wet enough to be squeezed, moulded, and held form.
It is quite probable that the treat's origins lie in the 17th century British colonization of Jamaica, even though bun and cheese is now intrinsic to Jamaican culture. The Jamaican bun may be traced back to its ancestors, the hot cross buns, which were similar baked goods flavored with spices and dried fruit. They were traditionally enjoyed on Good Friday and given its name from the crucifix that was iced on top. The original recipe for the cross called for a flour-and-water paste, but as time went on, it transformed into a sugar-and-milk icing that gave the buns a little sweetness.
Hot cross buns were first mentioned in the satirical Poor Robin's Almanac, which was written in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The belief that hot cross buns were traditionally given to the poor as a kind of alms and had therapeutic qualities is reflected in the poem, which is a reflection of the custom of selling buns on Good Friday.
The custom of eating buns at religious events, on the other hand, is older than British custom. As a token of the harvest, ancient Greeks would present little loaves of bread to goddess Demeter. On Easter, the traditional sweet bread called tsoureki is cooked. Spices such as mastic and mahlab, which are formed from cherry seeds, provide flavor to this braided bread together with orange zest. Tsoureki, like spicy buns topped with cherries, may be adorned with dyed red eggs to represent the blood of Jesus Christ.
Although the hot cross bun is most often linked with Christian holidays like Easter and Good Friday, its history goes far beyond that. Bread with crosses on it was thought to be a sacrifice to Babylonian goddess Ishtar in ancient Assyria. These were often adorned with designs that represented the four corners of the Moon. It is said that if you prepare a bun on Good Friday, it will never spoil. Another superstition holds that if you keep one bun in the home, it will protect it from fire and all the bread you bake there will come out properly. The same goes for British hot cross buns. Currently, the treat is associated with a more fluid understanding of "protection" in Jamaican culture, meaning "breaking bread" with loved ones.
Additionally, spiced bun symbolizes a long-simmering pride in Jamaican cuisine. The connection between the Jamaican affinity for the dish and the Caribbean pride in innovation was pointed out by Tulane University's Laura Adderley, an associate professor of African diaspora history.
"What's fascinating is the fact that people in the Caribbean, and Jamaica in particular, have been actively involved in this producing thing for the last hundred years. They made a regional culture before independence and a national culture thereafter. Now, [spiced bun] feels like it belongs to Jamaica.
Clarke argues that the development of bread and cheese is indicative of a core feature of Jamaican culinary tradition. "We applied our own flair to it, our culinary ingenuity, to make it our own," said the chef. Similar to how jerk spice was influenced by the Indigenous Taíno people of the Caribbean and curry was originated from India, Jamaicans used popular and plentiful spices and combined them with existing flavors to create a new staple food. The spiced bun's cinnamon and nutmeg are really ingredients in many Jamaican recipes.
"[We went] from honey to more of a molasses approach, which is why the colour is what it is these days," Clarke pointed out. And then to give it that special something, we tossed in some fresh ingredients like nutmeg, vanilla, stout flavoring, and cherries. Thus, it is really our unique selling point. The Jamaican people have a long tradition of improving upon existing things.
The influence of the dish is growing as it undergoes further development.
Even outside of the island nation, bread and cheese have become rather popular in the last several years. Buns and cheese are common ingredients in many Caribbean eateries, bakeries, and marketplaces. You may get this dish in a number of UK bakeries and even at a few Tesco stores. Even while Border is where the Golden Krust bread and cheese first appeared, you can now find it offered in supermarkets throughout the United States by the loaf or slice.
Clarke claims that a group of imaginative bun and cheese lovers has emerged as a result of this accessibility, in addition to their selling of "fruitless" buns for the more discerning Easter celebrant. Lizzo, a Grammy-winning singer and flutist, put her own twist on the meal after Golden Krust delivered her a package of spiced buns that didn't work.
After slicing the bread, she stuffed it with vegan shredded cheese, sealed it, and placed it on a griddle. So grilled cheese-like!" said Clarke.
Some have gone ahead and created their own spins on the classic, with milder flavors like bun and milk or more exotic ones like bun beef patty sandwiches, which include substituting spicy bread for cheese and a beef patty sandwich between two pieces of bun.
Bun and patty are really consumed by humans. It is in my view. According to him, it's a thing.
Even while bun and cheese are now spawning all sorts of inventive spins and even celebrity sponsorships, this treasured holiday tradition—a sign of Jamaican pride and innovation—still welcomes the arrival of spring with open arms.