At Home & Manufactured

Cooking at Home: In the Caribbean and in NYC 

Due to the pandemic, we are unable to do fieldwork nor interviews in person, so we will be referring to Dr. Lynn M. Houston’s “Making Do,” which contains research about how some families in the Caribbean prepare food, and to Dr. Lidia Marte’s dissertation, “Migrant Seasonings,” in which she engages in conversations about food with two women of the Dominican diaspora in New York City. A common theme between the families in the diaspora and those in the Caribbean is the concept of making do with whatever they resource they have, whether it be food or time.  

Even though the Caribbean islands export many goods, the people living there often do not have access to those goods. With an already limited supply of common produce, much of it ends up served to tourists who want to have a taste of authentic food. Consequently, there is little left for the natives, so they would cook with innards of animals to make stew or reinvent leftover ingredients from other dishes to make a new dish. The scarcity of these goods makes them think quickly and do what they need to survive. 

Similarly, in Dr. Marte’s interviews, we learn from her interviewee in NYC, Elsa, that she often cooks an abundance of several meals at once to save time, and to feed more mouths. With her job as a childcare worker, she is constantly busy. In order to take care of more people, she cooks spaghetti and meat, mangú, and la bandera ahead of time, so she doesn’t have to worry about cooking every day. Unlike other meal preppers who may concoct every cooking ingredient, Elsa only minces garlic at the start of the week for the week so she can save time. In this discussion, we can see the similarities between the cooking styles of someone in the diaspora and others in the Caribbean, and how both make the most of what they have and try to use their time wisely. 

Manufacturing

After migrating to New York, members of the diaspora longed for the familiar taste of home. The creation of two of the country’s largest Caribbean manufacturer and franchises, Golden Krust Bakery, and Caribbean Food Delights Grille and affiliate companies allowed people to get a quick and accessible taste of home. In addition to Caribbeans, Caribbean cuisine can be and is increasingly consumed by Americans of other ethnicities, which allowed the growth of these two companies. Both companies started as small shops in the Bronx and have grown tremendously since.  

Gold Krust Bakery

From our trip to Flatbush, one of the highlight stops was at Golden Krust Bakery, serving Jamaican baked goods, most notably their patties. The bakery has developed from a small shop to one of the largest Caribbean franchises and manufacturers in the United States. Lowell Hawthorne, who would become the CEO of Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery, worked with his parents from a young age at their family bakery back in Jamaica where he learned all his skills. After moving to New York, the Hawthorne siblings opened the first Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery in the Bronx in 1989, where it still stands today. In an interview with Network Journal’s Clarence Reynolds, Hawthorne recalls the struggles of trying to create the best recipe and flavor for his customers. He traveled to London, Jamaica and other countries to find the best combination of patty crust and meat fillings. He also emphasizes his love and appreciation from the community that supported his bakery, showing the value of community to Caribbeans. With his hard work, the bakery reached great success. With the growth of the bakery, the business eventually grew to encompass a manufacturing plant and the franchise, with the first chain location opened in Brooklyn.

The breakthrough into frozen goods and retail came in 2011 when the first microwaveable beef patties started being sold. Despite starting out aimed to give members of the Caribbean diaspora a taste of home, the patties have grown to feed Americans of all ethnicities.  Today, their “manufacturing headquarters, still in the Bronx, takes up an entire city block, with 220 employees at the factory where they produce 400 patties per minute. The company has 125 franchises from Massachusetts to Florida and 1,600 employees at the stores” (Network Journal, Reynolds, 2012). From the original family run bakery, Hawthorne has expanded his business tremendously. In 2019, the company celebrated its 30-year anniversary of bringing the taste of Caribbean to a larger audience in the United States and even the world in the future. 

See their official website: https://www.goldenkrust.com/our-story 

Caribbean Food Delights Grille 

In addition to Golden Krust, another major Caribbean franchise and manufacturer of frozen goods is Caribbean Food Delights Grille. The company, started by a Jamaican couple, Vincent and Jeanette HoSang began as a small bakery in the Bronx. Similarly to Golden Krust, the success behind Caribbean Food Delights Grille and its few affiliated companies was supported by the local community, who wanted a taste of home. Today, the company produces frozen goods, most notably Jamican style patties filled with meat or veggies, as well as traditional Caribbean spices and sauces. In addition, a branch company, the Royal Caribbean Bakery and Sabrina‘s Delights produces pastry goods which are available at large retailers such as Costco. The company is also affiliated with the franchise Jerk Q’Zine, a Caribbean Grille.

In an interview with Weekly Gleaner, Vincent HoSang speaks about his initial reluctance to turn his business into a franchise because he feared loss of quality. However, he decided to proceed with it anyway due to the support of the community. He recalls one incident when he ran out of scotch-bonnet peppers during a storm, but he refused to use dry crushed peppers like the one on pizzas, so he drove up to a friend in Canada who found him a last minute supply of 10 boxes (Weekly Gleaner, 2005). The dedication to quality in his products is demonstrated in his motto “Quality is our Priority”. The importance of community to the HoSang’s led them to create the Vincent HoSang Family Foundation using their success which provides scholarships and tuition assistance to students.   

See their official website: https://cfdnyinc.com/index.html