A taste of the islands makes UK lockdown easier

 

Glenda Andrew pulls a tray of salmon from the oven, filling the kitchen with the aroma of garlic, cayenne and lemon.

It is the scent of memory, of family dinners and church socials - the warmth of the Caribbean in the middle of a grey English winter made gloomier by COVID-19.

Andrew calls it "food for the soul" and and it's needed now more than ever by Britain's older immigrants who have been isolated from friends and family by the pandemic.

She and other volunteers prepare hot meals with the zing of the islands, which they distribute to people in Preston and surrounding communities in northwestern England that have recorded some of the U.K.'s highest coronavirus infection rates.

"(It's) what you call soul food so of course you are going to feel good.  And not only that someone else has cooked it for you so you don't have to stand in the kitchen all day," said Andrew.

"So the idea is to save you time and enjoy it especially if you are older and you can't stand up as much.  You might have a partner, your husband might not be well or vice versa."

Once a week, for the last 42 weeks, the lucky seniors on Andrew's list have been treated to delicacies such as jerk pork, curry pork and cow foot soup accompanied by rice and peas, yams and plantains.

Portions are hefty, so there's enough to go in the freezer for another day. Last week, some 400 meals were packed into yellow foam packages and delivered by volunteers.

The meal program grew out of Andrew's work with Preston Windrush Generation & Descendants, a group organized to fight for the rights of early immigrants from the Caribbean and other former British colonies who found themselves threatened with deportation in recent years.

The Windrush Generation, named after the ship that carried the first migrants from Jamaica in 1948, came to Britain in response to a government call for workers from throughout the Empire to help rebuild the country after World War II.

The Windrush Scandal rocked Britain in 2018 amid a crackdown on illegal immigration. Long-term legal residents lost jobs, homes and rights to medical care because many arrived as children and couldn't produce paperwork proving their right to live in the U.K. Some were detained, and an unknown number were deported to countries they barely remembered.

When the coronavirus pandemic struck Britain, the free-spirited Andrew didn't want the community to be victimized again. She decided to create her own food program tailored to the taste buds of the people she grew up with.

Volunteers like Dave Williams drive dozens of miles delivering the food.

In addition to food, the volunteers offer a little bit of human contact.

"The response from the people we deliver the food to is incredible," Williams said.

"The smiles, they want to chat to you.  Some of them haven't met you but they just want to talk to you, you talk to them and they want to find out what is going on.  It gives me such a buzz."

The loneliness and isolation of the past year is painful for many of the seniors. When deliveries arrive, they pepper the volunteers for friendly gossip about what their neighbours are up to.

Sylius Toussaint, 81, who came from Dominica in 1960, said chatting with volunteers like Williams helps as much as the food.

"When the deliverers like Dave and others come to the door they say hello and give you a meal and maybe for just a few seconds at least you see someone new," Toussaint said.

"If you are on your own it is so nice to see a fresh face especially bringing gifts," he said.

For carers such as Marlene Clarke, who looks after her mother 24-7, the meals are a lifeline.

"For one day a week I don't have to worry about a nutritional meal, custom made and culturally appropriate," said Clarke.

Even as optimism grows that Britain's mass vaccination programme may soon allow lockdown restrictions to be eased, Andrew wants to keep the meals flowing.

For now, they use a donated kitchen, but there's a glimmer of hope for a more permanent venue at some point - maybe a place the community can gather.

But that's in the future. For now, the volunteers plan to just keep going, gluing the community together with plates of rice and peas.