The Breadfruit Feast

The Breadfruit Feast a short story by Austin Mitchell Nanko dipped his spoon into the bowl of cornmeal porridge and took up another spoonful. He ate it and then put some more ackee and saltfish onto the hard-doe bread. He made a sandwich with it and bit off a huge piece. Their cornmeal porridge was made of grated corn with coconut milk. They had used wet sugar to sweeten it and grated a nutmeg in it to give it some more flavor. Butty, Dedco and Bully were also eating their porridge. “You think we’ll find him today?” Butty asked. The men were casual workers on several properties around the Mc Kenzie Lands area and they were looking for Berbice Morgan reputed to be a great eater. Stout eaters themselves, they were no match for Berbice. A feast was coming up and they wanted somebody to bet on. Wimple, one of the best eaters in the village, had withdrawn from the contest because his elder brother, Bam, a man with a fierce temper, had threatened to give him a terrible beating should he dare enter the contest. “Berbice is the only man capable of beating Bagda,” Nanko said. They were filling up themselves with this large load of food for the long haul into the woods to find Berbice. “He must be at his shack up in Lobban’s Ridge. That’s where he stays when he’s burning coal,” Bully said. They saw Hustay Willie coming towards them. He was riding on a gray mule. Hustay was also a coal burner. He was a big strapping man and a great eater. He had entered several eating contests, but had never finished anywhere in the top three. He wasn’t well liked in the village. Hustay had always boasted that his grandfather had been the driver on the nearby Goodall estate. In fact Hustay now carried his whip Hustay saw them eating and remembered that he hadn’t eaten his breakfast as yet. He stopped his mule and got off and tied it to a nearby tree stump. “You guys loading up. It seems as if you have some hard work ahead of you,” he greeted them as Sonia, Dedco's woman, came out of the house with a pail of lemonade. “Join us, Hustay,” Dedco invited him. Sonia greeted him too before putting down the pail and returning inside. Hustay took up a platter and poured out the rest of the ackee and saltfish into it. He took ten slices of the bread, each almost an inch thick in width and threw in his plate. He put down the plate and took two pears out of his bag. He passed one to the men while pealing the other and putting it into his plate. He poured a cheesepan full of lemonade and sat back to shovel the food into his mouth. “We are going to look for Berbice,” Bully said belatedly in reply to Hustay. They were all watching the pile of food on Hustay’s plate. They could have done with another helping, but Hustay had shoveled all the food that was left onto his platter. “Think you guys can find him? I might enter the contest because I hear that Wimple won’t be in it.” “We are looking for somebody to beat Bagda. You’ve come up against him several times and lost,” Dedco said. “I’ve beaten Bagda already and Berbice too.” He stuffed his mouth full of food. Hilda, Nankoo’s woman, came out of the house. “Any of you want some more food? Wait, Mister Hustay, I didn’t know you were here.” “Hilda, I could do with some roasted plantains if you have any and some cocoa tea too,” Hustay told her. The others told her that they had had their fill and she returned inside for the food for Hustay. “It’s so you guys eat light. You can’t be cutting cane or doing the kind of hard work we do and eat so light.” Hilda returned with the roasted plantains and a pot of cocoa tea. “We’re going up into the woods to look for Berbice. Chances are he’ll have more food up there for us,” Dedco said. If you enjoyed this excerpt, please get a copy of this collection of short stories.