The Belcour Cookbook
Purchase Online:

Available in-store:
For a signed copy contact Robin at 876-383-8942
or email at belcourpreserves[at]gmail[dot]com
About the book...
This book celebrates a Jamaican family’s legacy of love, food and hospitality. Jamaica’s heritage is a fusion of diverse cultures, and the recipes in this book reflect the richness of Jamaica’s culinary landscape. Interwoven throughout the book are short vignettes of the family’s history over three generations. The recipes act as both a snapshot of a personal history and a useful manual for entertaining.
Interview with author Robin Lim Lumsden


About the book continued
This book started with a collection of my Mother’s family recipes. One Christmas, many years after she had passed away I made spiral-bound copies of her collection and gave them to all the women in my family as presents. When I noticed that over the years this collection had become a permanent fixture in their kitchens, and they told me how much they used it, I decided to publish a proper book. In this book, I thought I needed to explain how Chinese Red Cooked Pork and Eggs, Ackee and Salt Fish, and Chicken Au gratin all ended up in the same collection. It is the telling of these stories of my Jamaican family’s history, I think, that makes this book more than a cookbook, and the recipes come alive.
My family's heritage
When I was a child we often ate a dish called "Ja Ja" Mian for dinner, it was one of my father’s favourites and is still one of ours. Dad told us that it was a poor man’s dish from the North of China. His Chinese God Mother often visited us in Jamaica and she taught Mum how to make it. It consists of pork in a black bean sauce, served over spaghetti with slivered cucumbers and peanut butter or sesame sauce. Dad said when Marco Polo visited China, he took the recipe back to Italy and that was the genesis of spaghetti and meat sauce. We never saw Ja Ja Mien on any menu in any Chinese restaurants, so we were very skeptical about this claim; another of Dad’s fantastical tales of growing up in China. When Dad, my sister Mirah and I visited China in 2000, we finally found Zha Jiang Mian, and somehow discovering it validated all my father’s fascinating recollections of growing up in pre-war Beijing and his life in China. This treasured family recipe will always remind me of my father and his wonderful Chinese heritage.
Big Ups
Jamaican Art Stores, Boutiques and Pharmacies
Craft Cottage
Village Plaza, Constant Spring Rd
Kingston, Jamaica
876-926-0719
Liguanea Drug and Garden
134 Old Hope Rd
Kingston, Jamaica
876-977-0066
Uncorked Ltd.
Shop 2, 29 Barbican Rd
Kingston, Jamaica
876-632-5500
Monarch Pharmacy
Shop 23, 106 Hope Rd
Kingston, Jamaica
876-978-3495
Island Art & Framing
20 Barbican Rd
Kingston, Jamaica
876-977-0318
Olympia Gallery
202 Old Hope Rd
Kingston, Jamaica
876-927-1608
My Jamaica
General Food Plaza, 6 Liguanea Ave
Kingston, Jamaica
876-977-2805
Gallery of West Indian Art
Nicola De Lissa
Montego Bay, Jamaica
876-839-9001
Books & CDs
Norman Manley Int'l Airport
Kingston, Jamaica
876-924-8379
Uncorked Jamaica
Sovereign North
29 Barbican Road
Kingston 6, Jamaica
876-632-5500
Liguanea Lane Pharmacy
Liguanea Lane / Hi-Lo Plaza
Kingston 6, Jamaica
876-977-2639
Harmony Hall Gallery
Ocho Rios, Jamaica
876-975-4222
