Jazz Is the Foundation of My Intellect
A 1" dark-spiced coconut-and-cardamom disc, cut like a record and served on a sleeve of brown paper
His grandfather ran a portside pub in Dar es Salaam. His father bought jazz records off American sailors as a boy in the 1940s, taught himself trumpet on an eighth-grade education, and ended up playing the BBC and, once, for the Queen. "Jazz is the foundation of my intellect," Fernandez says. "That was my education."
Why this bite? His father learned jazz off sailors in Dar es Salaam. That record collection was the classroom that worked.
The Story
School never gave him a curriculum that fit, so a Goan family's Tanzanian pub and a stack of secondhand jazz sides did the teaching instead — improvisation, structure, listening for the thing that isn't being played. The bite is East African in its spicing and cut to a perfect inch disc, sleeved like a 45, so the first thing on the tray is the education that actually took.
Read Full Story →Ingredients
- Toasted coconut
- Dark chocolate (70%)
- Green cardamom, ground
- Clove, a pinch
- Condensed milk
- Brown paper sleeves
Preparation
- 1.Toast coconut with cardamom and clove until fragrant.
- 2.Bind with condensed milk and melted dark chocolate.
- 3.Press 1/4" thin, chill, and punch clean 1" discs.
- 4.Serve each disc on a small brown paper sleeve.
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