Field notes
History
Imported flour became a slave staple, traded by the British for rum and molasses (Jamaica 55 gov't heritage page). No source links dumplings specifically to rations.
From Jamaica.
- First record
- 1907 · Modern & global
- Fold
- Ball
- Cooked
- Boiled
- Dough
- Wheat dough± cornmeal
- Made with
- Flour, water, salt; rolled or spun
- Cooked
- Boiled
- Served
- Ackee and saltfish, run-down, soups
- Size
- About 6 cm across
Not known yet We don’t yet have a written story, a recipe or a precise place of origin for Boiled dumplings. What we do have is below, with its sources.
Where
Open the map →
Evidence
Well established. An archaeological find or a primary source backs it.
We list 4 sources: 4 primary or archaeological. How grading works.
First record Jekyll, Jamaican Song and Story, 1907: dumplings of "plain flour and water, innocent of suet", eaten with salt fish (A); first found, earlier texts likely exist
Sources
- A
Note to the dancing tune 'Johnny, Johnny, da wharra fe dinner? Three slice a lilly bit a dumpling, Me Johnny come roll the board': 'The dumplings are plain flour and water, innocent of suet. They are very popular, and…
Note to the dancing tune 'Johnny, Johnny, da wharra fe dinner? Three slice a lilly bit a dumpling, Me Johnny come roll the board': 'The dumplings are plain flour and water, innocent of suet. They are very popular, and are eaten with a morsel of salt fish or meat. Johnny is invited to come and roll them on the board.' Jekyll calls it 'an old tune which is going out of fashion'. - A
A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica, vol. I (London, 1707)
Not this dish: Sloane (in Jamaica 1687-1689) says plantains are 'boil'd in Oglio's or Pepper-Pots, and prepar'd into a Past like Dumplins', and that ripe plantains are 'boil'd in the Skins, peel'd and beat to a Paste,…
Not this dish: Sloane (in Jamaica 1687-1689) says plantains are 'boil'd in Oglio's or Pepper-Pots, and prepar'd into a Past like Dumplins', and that ripe plantains are 'boil'd in the Skins, peel'd and beat to a Paste, form'd like a Dumplin and call'd Buff-Jacket'. These are pounded-plantain balls compared to English dumplings, not wheat-flour dumplings. - A
Same dish, same name, but in the Leeward Islands, not Jamaica. Hospital diet table, Colonial Hospital, St. Kitts: 'Monday. — Dumplings and salt fish ; 1/2 lb. of flour mixed with salt and water and boiled with 1/2 lb.…
Same dish, same name, but in the Leeward Islands, not Jamaica. Hospital diet table, Colonial Hospital, St. Kitts: 'Monday. — Dumplings and salt fish ; 1/2 lb. of flour mixed with salt and water and boiled with 1/2 lb. of salt fish.' Colonial Hospital, Antigua: 'Dumplings. — Cornmeal, 1 oz. ; flour, wheaten, 2 ozs. ; to weigh about 4 ozs. when cooked. To be cooked in the soup.' Dr Mapleton on St. Kitts: 'The ordinary diet of the lower orders consists of rice, salt fish, bread, fruit, sweet potatoes, salt beef, corn meal, herrings, flour in the form of bread and dumplings ...' (The fractions are garbled in the OCR and read from context.) - A
Jamaica, three years after Jekyll: at the Kingston races the cook-stalls sell 'boiled salted fish seasoned with lard or cotton seed oil, and served with yam and cocoa and large flour dumplings'.
Family F
