Why Make Bammy Cakes When You Can Buy Them?

Caroline Sullivan’s 1897 The Jamaican Cookery Book: Three Hundred and Sixty-Four Simple Cookery Receipts and Household Hints offers a wide variety of traditional Jamaican recipes. Although Sullivan clearly states in her preface that she had “carefully refrained from giving European Cookery” and confined herself “to the every day dishes which come under immediate notice in the island,” colonial connotations permeate the book. For instance, in the above entry for “Baked Cassava and Bammy Cakes,” Sullivan mentions that the cakes are “easier to buy ready-made, and they are very inexpensive. A packet of cassavas at threepence, and a penny-half-penny worth of bammys are enough for breakfast unless the party is a large one” (95). It’s important to note the assumed choice with regard to either making bammy cakes from scratch or simply purchasing them pre-made. In addition, the presumption of bammy cakes being deemed as “inexpensive” is completely dependent upon the economic status of her audience as well as the currency in which it is being bought.