I grew up in a house with two kinds of rice. There was parboiled, the kind for peas and pigs feet, and jasmine, the kind to steam alone. That also became how I thought about the food we ate, two separate groups of taste. There was Chinese food and Jamaican food and so by addition, we were Chinese-Jamaican. Two things which were separate despite the fact I am described as mixed.
Patois, Soon Come is a personal essay I wrote for LooseLeaf Magazine Volume 4. This issue focused on food as “a way for us to make place and community for ourselves.”
In the essay, I examine my relationship to food growing up as a person of Chinese-Jamaican descent and recount my first dining experience at Patois Toronto, a hybrid Asian-Caribbean restaurant created by Chef Craig Wong.
Catherine Vendryes 