The writer and cook Melissa Thompson talks about her book Motherland; a very personal history of Jamaica.

Melissa weaves the history of the country so elegantly with her own story in a way that makes it impossible to ignore that the violent history of colonialism in Jamaica is to do with all of us in Britain. As you’ll hear us talk about, she uses the physical walls of the Drax Estate in Dorset, where she grew up, to demonstrate how ingrained Britain’s colonial legacy is in the very fabric of our life here - and it’s mostly been buried.

I also asked Melissa how she approaches translating recipes which are very personal to her into a format which can be comprehensible and replicable by anyone who buys her book. Is anything lost or compromised in this process of translation?



Motherland is out now, published by Bloomsbury.

This is the third of three episodes this month about contemporary personal food writing and memoir. The first can be found here and the second here.

Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.

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Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Full transcript on the Lecker website.