MarjiesPlaintainFoods

All Natural..Healthy and Tasty..Try It!!

Plaintain Foods

Meat and Vegetable Plaintain Tart

Marjie’s Plantain Food products combine US fine dining style with the food that I grew up with in Haiti. The result is a marriage of US style and Caribbean healthy food. My approach to food preparation draws on traditions and also insights that I’ve developed through experimenting with plantains. As a result, Marjie’s Plantain Foods converts a staple of the Caribbean and Latin America into a series of US health food products that are natural, filled with vitamins, and taste good. Try some!

Cod Fish Cake Vegetable Plantain Loaf

Flageolet Plantain Loaf Chicken Plantain Tart

Biography

Marjorie Dunbar

I grew up in Haiti where I lived with my grandmother, a single elderly businesswoman. At an early age, she had me selling her baked goods and other farm products to local peasants and collecting her money. I developed a fondness for the peasants because they were always nice to me. I used to give away some of my grandmother's products to them and in return they would give me fresh food made from produce cultivated in their small gardens. I still recall that the baked goods that I brought to the peasants and the food that they gave me were all always natural and always tasty.

At first I thought that maybe education could help and so I attended New York Technical College for a degree in food and management and graduated in December 1996. Though I did not want to be a chef, I knew I wanted to work with food. I was also afraid to admit it to myself and to others. So I kept my silence for a while. But the thought of creating these new products kept coming back to me.

Unable to articulate my ideas, and often feeling lost not knowing what to do I was often dissatisfied but always looking for other things to learn that I thought would help me. In January 1997 I enrolled at Baruch College and earned a degree in business. That was followed by a brief stint in corporate world. I worked there for a short time, and then quickly realized that if I stayed in such a position, my dream would never come true. So in 2004, I started to bake using plantains. Immediately, I noticed how good I felt. I started to have the memories of my grandmother and the peasants. I realized right away what my vision was all about and why I often felt empty no matter where I worked.

I continued to visualize different ways of presenting food that others have never seen or tried before but which would be tasty, fresh and natural; and that others would enjoy as well. So I kept going back to work in fine dining restaurants, I later realized that I always wanted to be near food. As I continued to work in various fine-dining restaurants in New York, the vision kept getting clearer to me and made more sense. So I was able to write down various ideas of creating food products that would combine foods made here in fine dining restaurants with food that I was accustomed to eating as a child growing up. This cultural marriage would consist of new food products that would combine the fine dining style I learned in the US with the natural, tasty and healthy food that my grandmother's maids and the peasants made for me in Haiti. I have drawn on these two cultures in developing Marjie's Plantain Foods where the emphasis in the food presentation would remain fine dining style found in America. The type of plantain food products I prepare therefore is a reflection of both tradition American and Haitian tradition. This basic vision has enabled me to open up new possibilities for what can be done with plantains as a basic food product. My business Marjie's Plantain Foods converts a staple food from the Caribbean and Latin America - plantains - into a series of American health food products that are natural, filled with vitamins, and taste good. Try some!

Marjorie

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