Hi everyone and welcome to the blog. This blog is solely dedicated to one man, namely the legendary Bob Marley. It is 30 years this week since the great man lost his life to cancer. The featured recipes have a Jamaican feel to them, apart from the last. The recipe are Jamaican Pepperpot Stew, Crab with Mango and Avocado Salad, Hot, Hot Bananasand Strawberry Au Poivre. The herb of the week is Lemon Balm.
Nesta Robert "Bob" Marley, (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers (1963–1981). Marley remains the most widely known and revered performer of reggae music, and is credited with helping spread both Jamaican music and the Rastafari movement to a worldwide audience.
Marley's music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his homeland, and he is considered to have given voice to the specific political and cultural nexus of Jamaica. His best-known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Could You Be Loved", "Stir It Up", "Jamming", "Redemption Song", "One Love" and, together with The Wailers, "Three Little Birds", as well as the posthumous releases "Buffalo Soldier" and "Iron Lion Zion". The compilation album Legend (1984), released three years after his death, is reggae's best-selling album, going ten times Platinum (Diamond) in the U.S., and selling 25 million copies worldwide.
Bob Marley was born in the village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica as Nesta Robert Marley a Jamaican passport official would later swap his first and middle names. His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, was a white Jamaican of English descent whose family came from Essex, England. Norval was a captain in the Royal Marines, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old.[9] Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. In 1955, when Marley was 10 years old, his father died of a heart attack at age 60.[10] Marley faced questions about his own racial identity throughout his life. He once reflected “I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.” Although Marley recognised his mixed ancestry, throughout his life and because of his beliefs, he self-identified as a black African, following the ideas of Pan-African leaders. Marley stated that his two biggest influences were the African-centred Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie. A central theme in Bob Marley's message was the repatriation of black people to Zion, which in his view was Ethiopia, or more generally, Africa. In songs such as "Black Survivor", "Babylon System", and "Blackman Redemption", Marley sings about the struggles of blacks and Africans against oppression from the West or "Babylon".
Marley became friends with Neville "Bunny" Livingston (later known as Bunny Wailer), with whom he started to play music. He left school at the age of 14 to make music with Joe Higgs, a local singer and devout Rastafari. At a jam session with Higgs and Livingston, Marley met Peter McIntosh (later known as Peter Tosh), who had similar musical ambitions. In 1962, Marley recorded his first two singles, "Judge Not" and "One Cup of Coffee", with local music producer Leslie Kong. These songs, released on the Beverley's label under the pseudonym of Bobby Martell, attracted little attention. The songs were later re-released on the box set Songs of Freedom, a posthumous collection of Marley's work.
At the start of a European tour, Marley injured his toe playing football. In July 1977, he was found to have acral lentiginous melanoma, a form of malignant melanoma. Despite his illness, he wished to continue touring and was in the process of scheduling a world tour in 1980. The intention was for Inner Circle to be his opening act on the tour but after their lead singer Jacob Miller died in Jamaica in March 1980 after returning from a scouting mission in Brazil this was no longer mentioned. The album Uprising was released in May 1980 (produced by Chris Blackwell), on which Redemption Song is particularly considered to be about Marley coming to terms with his mortality. The band completed a major tour of Europe, where they played their biggest concert, to a hundred thousand people in Milan. After the tour Marley went to America, where he performed two shows at Madison Square Garden as part of the Uprising Tour. Shortly afterwards, his health deteriorated and he became very ill; the cancer had spread throughout his body. The rest of the tour was cancelled and Marley sought treatment at the Bavarian clinic of Josef Issels, where he received a controversial type of cancer therapy partly based on avoidance of certain foods, drinks, and other substances. After fighting the cancer without success for eight months, Marley boarded a plane for his home in Jamaica.
While flying home from Germany to Jamaica, in acceptance that he was going to die, Marley's vital functions worsened. After landing in Miami, Florida, he was taken to the hospital for immediate medical attention. He died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami (now University of Miami Hospital) on the morning of 11 May 1981, at the age of 36. The spread of melanoma to his lungs and brain caused his death. His final words to his son Ziggy were "Money can't buy life". Marley received a state funeral in Jamaica on 21 May 1981, which combined elements of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Rastafari tradition. He was buried in a chapel near his birthplace with his red Gibson Les Paul (some accounts say it was a Fender Stratocaster).
On 21 May 1981, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga delivered the final funeral eulogy to Marley, declaring “His voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world. His sharp features, majestic looks, and prancing style a vivid etching on the landscape of our minds. Bob Marley was never seen. He was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter. Such a man cannot be erased from the mind. He is part of the collective consciousness of the nation.”
Bob Marley was the Third World’s first pop superstar. He was the man who introduced the world to the mystic power of reggae. He was a true rocker at heart, and as a songwriter, he brought the lyrical force of Bob Dylan, the personal charisma of John Lennon, and the essential vocal stylings of Smokey Robinson into one voice. In 1999 Time magazine chose Bob Marley & The Wailers' Exodus as the greatest album of the 20th century. In 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and a feature-length documentary about his life, Rebel Music, won various awards at the Grammys. With contributions from Rita, The Wailers, and Marley's lovers and children, it also tells much of the story in his own words. A statue was inaugurated, next to the national stadium on Arthur Wint Drive in Kingston to commemorate him. In 2006, the State of New York renamed a portion of Church Avenue from Remsen Avenue to East 98th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn "Bob Marley Boulevard". In 2008, a statue of Marley was inaugurated in Banatski Sokolac, Serbia.
Internationally, Marley’s message also continues to reverberate amongst various indigenous communities. For instance, the Aboriginal people of Australia continue to burn a sacred flame to honour his memory in Sydney’s Victoria Park, while members of the Native American Hopi and Havasupai tribe consider Marley to be the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy. Additionally, for some in Nepal, Marley is considered to be an incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu.
Marley has also evolved into a global symbol, which has been endlessly merchandised through a variety of mediums. In lieu of this, author Dave Thompson in his book Reggae and Caribbean Music, laments what he perceives to be the commercialized pacification of Marley's more militant edge, stating “Bob Marley ranks among both the most popular and the most misunderstood figures in modern culture ... That the machine has utterly emasculated Marley is beyond doubt. Gone from the public record is the ghetto kid who dreamed of Che Guevara and the Black Panthers, and pinned their posters up in the Wailers Soul Shack record store; who believed in freedom; and the fighting which it necessitated, and dressed the part on an early album sleeve; whose heroes were James Brown and Muhammad Ali; whose God was Rastafari and whose sacrament was marijuana. Instead, the Bob Marley who surveys his kingdom today is smiling benevolence, a shining sun, a waving palm tree, and a string of hits which tumble out of polite radio like candy from a gumball machine. Of course it has assured his immortality. But it has also demeaned him beyond recognition. Bob Marley was worth far more.”
Marley has also evolved into a global symbol, which has been endlessly merchandised through a variety of mediums. In lieu of this, author Dave Thompson in his book Reggae and Caribbean Music, laments what he perceives to be the commercialized pacification of Marley's more militant edge, stating “Bob Marley ranks among both the most popular and the most misunderstood figures in modern culture ... That the machine has utterly emasculated Marley is beyond doubt. Gone from the public record is the ghetto kid who dreamed of Che Guevara and the Black Panthers, and pinned their posters up in the Wailers Soul Shack record store; who believed in freedom; and the fighting which it necessitated, and dressed the part on an early album sleeve; whose heroes were James Brown and Muhammad Ali; whose God was Rastafari and whose sacrament was marijuana. Instead, the Bob Marley who surveys his kingdom today is smiling benevolence, a shining sun, a waving palm tree, and a string of hits which tumble out of polite radio like candy from a gumball machine. Of course it has assured his immortality. But it has also demeaned him beyond recognition. Bob Marley was worth far more.”
My first recipe is Jamaican Pepperpot courtesy of BBC GoodFood website, first published in Olive Magazine Nov 2010.
Serves 4, takes 10mins to prepare and 2hrs 20mins to cook.
750g x Braising or Stewing Beef
1Ltr x Organic Beef Stock
2 x Large Onions, sliced
2 x Garlic Cloves, sliced
A Large Chunk of Ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 x Bay Leaves
5 x Allspice Berries
1 x Stick Cinnamon
4 x Cloves
1 x Scotch Bonnet Chilli or Red Chilli, seeded and finely chopped
400ml x Coconut Milk
3 x Big Sprigs of Thyme
2 x Sweet Potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
4 x Large New Potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
100g x Kale, chopped
Crusty Bread, to serve
Butter, to serve
1Ltr x Organic Beef Stock
2 x Large Onions, sliced
2 x Garlic Cloves, sliced
A Large Chunk of Ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 x Bay Leaves
5 x Allspice Berries
1 x Stick Cinnamon
4 x Cloves
1 x Scotch Bonnet Chilli or Red Chilli, seeded and finely chopped
400ml x Coconut Milk
3 x Big Sprigs of Thyme
2 x Sweet Potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
4 x Large New Potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
100g x Kale, chopped
Crusty Bread, to serve
Butter, to serve
Put the first 9 ingredients in a large pot then season. Simmer gently for 30 minutes uncovered, skimming off any residue that comes on the surface. Add the chilli, coconut milk and thyme then cook for 1 hour. Add the potatoes and cook for another 1/2 hour. Add the kale and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with crusty bread.
My next recipe is Crab with mango and avocado salad, recipe by Levi Roots, courtesy of BBC website originally from Caribbean Food Made Easy.
Serves 4
1kg/2¼lb x Cooked Crab - white meat and claw meat only, chopped (the brown meat can be used in another recipe)
1 x Just-Ripe Mango - peeled, stone removed, flesh cut into cubes
2 x Avocados - stones and skin removed, flesh cut into cubes
1 x Red Onion - peeled, sliced
1 x Garlic Clove - peeled, sliced
½ x Mild Red Chilli - seeds removed, finely sliced
2 x Sprigs of Fresh Thyme - leaves only
1 x Lime - juice only
1-2 tbsp x Olive Oil (or to taste)
A Pinch of Salt
2 x Baby Gem lettuces - leaves separated, washed and patted dry with kitchen paper
1 x Just-Ripe Mango - peeled, stone removed, flesh cut into cubes
2 x Avocados - stones and skin removed, flesh cut into cubes
1 x Red Onion - peeled, sliced
1 x Garlic Clove - peeled, sliced
½ x Mild Red Chilli - seeds removed, finely sliced
2 x Sprigs of Fresh Thyme - leaves only
1 x Lime - juice only
1-2 tbsp x Olive Oil (or to taste)
A Pinch of Salt
2 x Baby Gem lettuces - leaves separated, washed and patted dry with kitchen paper
Place the white crabmeat and claw meat into a bowl, add the chopped mango, avocados, red onion, garlic, red chilli, thyme leaves, lime juice and olive oil, then season, to taste, with salt. Mix until well combined. To serve, spoon the crab mixture into the lettuce leaves. Divide the filled lettuce leaves equally among four serving plates.
Herb of the week – Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) 
Lemon balm, not to be confused with bee balm, Monarda species, is a perennial herb in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean region. In England it may be known simply as "balm". It grows to 70–150 cm tall. The leaves have a gentle lemon scent, related to mint. During summer, small white flowers full of nectar appear. These attract bees, hence the genus name Melissa (Greek for 'honey bee'). Its flavour comes from citronellal (24%), geranial (16%), linalyl acetate (12%) and caryophyllene (12%).
Lemon balm is often used as a flavouring in ice cream and herbal teas, both hot and iced, often in combination with other herbs such as spearmint. It is also frequently paired with fruit dishes. It can be used in fish dishes and is the key ingredient in lemon balm pesto.
The crushed leaves, when rubbed on the skin, are used as a repellent for mosquitoes. Lemon balm is also used medicinally as a herbal tea, or in extract form. It is claimed to have antibacterial and antiviral properties (it is effective against herpes simplex). It is also used as an anxiolytic, mild sedative or calming agent. At least one study has found it to be effective at reducing stress, although the study's authors call for further research. Lemon balm extract was identified as a potent inhibitor of GABA transaminase, which explains anxiolytic effects. The major compound responsible for GABA transaminase inhibition activity in lemon balm is rosmarinic acid.
Lemon balm and preparations thereof also have shown to improve mood and mental performance. These effects are believed to involve muscarinic and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Positive results have been achieved in a small clinical trial involving Alzheimer patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Its antibacterial properties have also been demonstrated scientifically, although they are markedly weaker than those from a number of other plants studied. The extract of lemon balm was also found to have exceptionally high antioxidant activity.
Lemon balm is mentioned in the scientific journal Endocrinology, where it is explained that Melissa officinalis exhibits anti-thyrotropic activity, inhibiting TSH from attaching to TSH receptors, hence making it of possible use in the treatment of Graves' disease or hyperthyroidism. Lemon balm essential oil is very popular in aromatherapy. The essential oil is commonly co-distilled with lemon oil, citronella oil, or other oils. Lemon balm is used in some variations of the Colgate Herbal toothpaste for its soothing and aromatic properties. Lemon balm should be avoided by those on thyroid medication (such as thyroxine), as it is believed the herb inhibits the absorption of this medicine. Traditionally this herb has been used as a sedative, and as an antispasmodic.
Lemon balm, not to be confused with bee balm, Monarda species, is a perennial herb in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean region. In England it may be known simply as "balm". It grows to 70–150 cm tall. The leaves have a gentle lemon scent, related to mint. During summer, small white flowers full of nectar appear. These attract bees, hence the genus name Melissa (Greek for 'honey bee'). Its flavour comes from citronellal (24%), geranial (16%), linalyl acetate (12%) and caryophyllene (12%).
Lemon balm is often used as a flavouring in ice cream and herbal teas, both hot and iced, often in combination with other herbs such as spearmint. It is also frequently paired with fruit dishes. It can be used in fish dishes and is the key ingredient in lemon balm pesto.
The crushed leaves, when rubbed on the skin, are used as a repellent for mosquitoes. Lemon balm is also used medicinally as a herbal tea, or in extract form. It is claimed to have antibacterial and antiviral properties (it is effective against herpes simplex). It is also used as an anxiolytic, mild sedative or calming agent. At least one study has found it to be effective at reducing stress, although the study's authors call for further research. Lemon balm extract was identified as a potent inhibitor of GABA transaminase, which explains anxiolytic effects. The major compound responsible for GABA transaminase inhibition activity in lemon balm is rosmarinic acid.
Lemon balm and preparations thereof also have shown to improve mood and mental performance. These effects are believed to involve muscarinic and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Positive results have been achieved in a small clinical trial involving Alzheimer patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Its antibacterial properties have also been demonstrated scientifically, although they are markedly weaker than those from a number of other plants studied. The extract of lemon balm was also found to have exceptionally high antioxidant activity.
Lemon balm is mentioned in the scientific journal Endocrinology, where it is explained that Melissa officinalis exhibits anti-thyrotropic activity, inhibiting TSH from attaching to TSH receptors, hence making it of possible use in the treatment of Graves' disease or hyperthyroidism. Lemon balm essential oil is very popular in aromatherapy. The essential oil is commonly co-distilled with lemon oil, citronella oil, or other oils. Lemon balm is used in some variations of the Colgate Herbal toothpaste for its soothing and aromatic properties. Lemon balm should be avoided by those on thyroid medication (such as thyroxine), as it is believed the herb inhibits the absorption of this medicine. Traditionally this herb has been used as a sedative, and as an antispasmodic.
My next recipe is Hot, Hot Bananas, recipe by Levi Roots, courtesy of BBC website originally from Caribbean Food Made Easy.
Serves 4, takes 10mins to prepare and approx. 15mins to cook.
3 tbsp x Soft Light Brown Sugar
½ tsp x Ground Ginger
¼ tsp x Finely Grated Nutmeg
4 x Medium-Sized Bananas, skins on
20g x Butter - cut into eight thin slices
1 x Large Lime - juice only
Whipped Cream or Vanilla Ice Cream, to serve
½ tsp x Ground Ginger
¼ tsp x Finely Grated Nutmeg
4 x Medium-Sized Bananas, skins on
20g x Butter - cut into eight thin slices
1 x Large Lime - juice only
Whipped Cream or Vanilla Ice Cream, to serve
Place the white crabmeat and claw meat into a bowl, add the chopped mango, avocados, red onion, garlic, red chilli, thyme leaves, lime juice and olive oil, then season, to taste, with salt. Mix until well combined. To serve, spoon the crab mixture into the lettuce leaves. Divide the filled lettuce leaves equally among four serving plates.
My final recipe Strawberry Au Poivre, was given to me by a friend, Keith Graham, a presenter for 6Towns Radio (www.6towns.co.uk)
Serves 4
24 x Strawberries roughly 6 per head
Pernod
Raspberry Jam
A Good Grind of Black Pepper
Orange Juice
Double Cream or Clotted Cream
Pernod
Raspberry Jam
A Good Grind of Black Pepper
Orange Juice
Double Cream or Clotted Cream
Hull and quarter half the strawberries, put to one side. Hull and mash the remainder. Mix the mashed strawberry's with a good slug of Pernod, dollop of strawberry jam, liberal amount of crushed black pepper (not dust) and a dash of orange juice. You're looking for a stiff-ish mix here. To this mash add the quartered strawberries and a generous portion of very thick cream, if heart attacks are not an issue use clotted cream instead. Give it a good stir. Once mixed, serve in a sundae bowl using a strawberry leaf as garnish.
One Love>
If you have enjoyed my blog, or have tried out the recipes I have included and wish to comment, please feel free to comment using the comment button or by visiting my guestbook, all comments and suggestions will be gratefully received.
Hope you enjoy!!..... ChefGarfy =D
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