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ISLAND
DELIGHT – Daily Telegraph Newspaper - Business Profile
Business
profile: Making salt fish patties British
By
Rosie Murray-West
The
cook who wants his salt fish patties to be as British as chicken
korma
Rosie
Murray-West meets a Caribbean culinary revolutionary
My
taxi driver has almost given up on finding Island Delight
Foods when he spots a factory, garishly decorated with
palm trees, nestling behind the local Pentecostal church.
Since
the only Island in the vicinity is home to a few traffic cones
and a Give Way sign, and 'Delight' is a pretty strong description
of this particular part of Birmingham, he looks dubious when
I ask to be dropped off outside. However, the strong smell
of minced meat and salt fish is proof we're in the right place
to meet Wade Lynn, Caribbean patty king.
Mr
Lynn, a 44-year-old Jamaican with a broader Brummie accent
than Jasper Carrott, is on a mission to do for Caribbean home-style
cooking what Patak's did for chicken korma - make it ubiquitous
and comfortable enough for the British to accept as their
own.
His
patties, of which we consume six million a year, come in flavours
from innocuous-sounding vegetable to slightly scarier salt
fish. He just about puts up with me describing them as 'a
bit like Cornish pasties', contenting himself by dubbing their
UK cousins 'very bland', and remarking: 'The British palate
has changed.' Bearing
the green and yellow palm tree logo, Island Delight patties
are sold in supermarkets up and down Britain. He's also hoping
to distribute "cocktail" patties from delicatessens.
The
lecture on Nasa is typical. Mr Lynn trained as a teacher before
founding Island Delight in 1988, and the didactic urge is
still strong. By the end of an hour, he's disgorged a mine
of information about Portuguese cookery, food fairs in Las
Vegas and the taste of breadfruit. By the time he's shown
me round the factory I could probably take an exam in Caribbean
cooking.
Jamaican
by birth, Mr Lynn moved to Birmingham as a child, and grew
up attending the local secondary modern. "I loved my
food, and in Jamaica it's normal for the boys to do cooking
- most of the chefs are men, so I started learning how to
do it at the age of 14. I would come home from school and
make the gravy." His mum must be proud of having taught
him all she knew? "She's moved back to Jamaica with my
dad, and she hasn't tasted my stuff for ages," he says.
"But she reckons it's good."
He
goes back to Jamaica several times a year, to get new ideas
as well as to see his parents, and has just been out shooting
a promotional video for the company. "It was very hard
work," he moans. "We had to be up at sunrise on
the beach," It's somewhat hard to be sympathetic, especially
when he starts raving about the "fantastic" lobster
patties he had and that he might introduce here.
After
he's tempted us in with the familiar-looking patties, he's
hoping we'll graduate to other Caribbean tastes, in the shape
of the ready meals he is just beginning to develop. "You
have Tex-Mex, Chinese and Indian, so why not Caribbean? There
are two flights out to Jamaica every week and they are all
potential customers for our food when they get back".
He'll probably start with jerk chicken - "I can see you've
heard of that" - and move on to more hardcore delicacies,
although probably not goat. "It tends to be goat in Jamaica
because there aren't many sheep, but round here we use lamb."
Island
Delight supplies thousands of patties to prisons, and they're
slightly smaller than the ones sold in shops.
Downstairs, the factory is in full swing, with vast vats of
bubbling beef and spices, acres of yellow-tinted pastry and
brightly coloured wrappers galore.
Mr
Lynn is resplendent in a monogrammed white coat, clearly master
of all he surveys. "Luckily, you are going to get some
free samples," he says grandly. "I always give everyone
a bag so they can give them to their friends. My daughter
likes to take them into school, it makes her very popular."
Jamaican
businessmen are a rarity at local CBI meetings, in which he
takes an enthusiastic part, and he says he enjoys going into
schools and telling the children about industry. "You
can succeed in it, whatever your background."
Daily
Telegraph Saturday 31 July 2004
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