Arrowroot was once Bermuda’s most profitable export. So important was it that “the year was divided into seasons rather than months: arrowroot, onion, turtling, grouper and others,” writes E.A. McCallan, author of Life on Old St. David’s Bermuda (Bermuda Historical Monuments Trust, 1948). Believed to have been brought to Bermuda from the Bahamas in 1616 and first grown on Paget Island, arrowroot production was for a long time confined to the east end, where it was harvested from the early 1800s into the 1900s. St. David’s, where there were once eighteen families growing it, was said to produce the best arrowroot in Bermuda. And Bermuda arrowroot was said to be the best in the world. Today only a handful of plants survive.
Jessica Cox is the last person to harvest arrowroot in Bermuda. A keen cook and gardener, she is, at 94, the sole custodian of a long-standing tradition in which the once highly prized fibrous root is ground into a starch for cooking. Maranta arundinacea, commonly known as Bermuda arrowroot, was once considered the finest in the world. It was also the most expensive. Valued for being both highly nutritious and easily digestible, arrowroot was used to make biscuits and puddings to aid digestion. It was also often used as a food for invalids, particularly those suffering from dysentery. Florence Nightingale is said to have treated soldiers with Bermuda arrowroot during the Crimean War.
Growing and harvesting the plant was a very labour-intensive exercise. The roots run deep—with the most starch contained in the part at the very bottom—and digging was slow. It then had to be peeled, washed and pulped, before being sieved and drained several times, left to dry in the sun and, ultimately, ground into a fine flour. “It’s a very long manual process,” says Jessica. “How an earth they did it in the old days, I have no idea. It takes two or three days just to dry. Probably a week, or longer, for the whole thing, if not more, depending on the weather. If you’ve got rain, it’s very difficult. There is no way of drying it.” She follows the same process that Bermudians have been following for two hundred years, although when it comes to the final step, she uses an electric food processor. “I do it the lazy way. I pulverise it in that,” she says pointing to the appliance on her kitchen counter. “That saves me a lot of time.”
Arrowroot was, for a long time, a cottage industry in Bermuda. Grown from March to January, it was harvested, and peeled, in the winter months. “In my day [male] diggers were paid four shillings a day, or the same per barrel of rough stick or unpeeled roots,” writes E.A. McCallan. “Women peelers received one shilling and sixpence a barrel of peeled stick—the barrels were frequently shaken down by the grower to the unconcealed annoyance of the peelers.” Peeling was left entirely to the women who would host parties and peel the crops at home in groups with their children. Next the starch needed to be separated from the fibre. This would be handed over to the men, who would use a type of mill wheel to pulp the plant. The starch was then separated and washed through sieves into large tubs. This step was repeated several times until the starch settled. It was then put on canvas stretchers to be drained, before being placed on large wooden trays which were left out in the sun to dry for several days. This meant that the drying process was very much at the mercy of the weather, requiring sun, no rain, or wind, and for the trays to be brought inside every evening and taken out again the next day. Once processed, the flour was stored in barrels. “My uncles used to grow it on Smith’s Island—Howard and Eugene Smith,” remembers Ronnie Chameau. “There was an arrowroot factory down there. And our arrowroot, it was perfect. We used to put it out for shipping. We’d line the barrels with this pretty blue paper and then put the arrowroot in it, which kept it white.” It could be stored for years with no deterioration.
Bermuda began commercially exporting arrowroot in the late eighteenth century on the advice of British merchants who were impressed with the quality being produced on the island. Demand soon exceeded supply and in the early 1830s Henry James Tucker turned one of the buildings at Camden into an arrowroot factory. In 1834, the schooner Sally Ann is recorded as having sailed to London from Bermuda with 30 tons of arrowroot on board, believed to be the first large scale export of the flour produced at Camden. A second centrally located arrowroot factory was established shortly afterwards at Bellevue, the estate of W.T. James. In 1844 John Bluck opened his first provision shop in Hamilton and became one of its principal merchants. Export reached its peak that year, with 1,110,502 pounds of arrowroot exported from Bermuda to London. Indeed, Bermuda arrowroot was so prized that in 1851 it was sent to London to be displayed at the Great Exhibition as an example of Bermudian excellence. The export of arrowroot rose and fell dramatically—with 71,484 pounds in 1870, 20,624 pounds in 1880, 9,213 pounds in 1890 and 33,350 pounds in 1900. Camden stopped producing arrowroot in 1918 when H.M. (Tommy) Fox stopped growing it on his farm in St. David’s due to fierce competition from the arrowroot produced in St. Vincent. Production at Bellevue carried on a few more years and stopped in 1922.
At the family property in Orange Valley, Devonshire, Jessica Cox is keeping the tradition alive. There, amongst the rose gardens and citrus groves, she has been growing arrowroot in the same 12 by 6-foot patch for the past six decades. Kitty Zuill, another keen gardener and cook, first introduced Jessica to arrowroot and its history, and urged Jessica to grow it. It was Kitty who also taught her how to harvest and process it. “I knew it was important to Bermuda,” says Jessica, of why she took on the mantle. Understanding its cultural importance, Jessica gave some arrowroot plants several years ago to Richard Spurling, founder of the St. David’s Historical Society. He planted them in the grounds of Carter House, the seventeenth-century Bermuda house turned museum which preserves the history of St. David’s Island. Arrowroot was grown at Carter House in the late 1800s by Howard Smith, who also grew lilies and onions on the farm which then spanned 12 acres. Whilst the arrowroot plants at Carter House today are not harvested, they are thriving in the garden which now counts over forty species of endemic and native plants.
Jessica credits her love of gardening and growing to six years spent as an evacuee on a farm in North Wales during the Second World War. She and her family were on holiday there when war broke out in 1939. Jessica was four years old. “Daddy said, you’d better stay because I know that you are all safe here,” she remembers. “We had chickens. We had butter. And rabbits. We were very lucky.” Growing up at the farm under rationing and the Dig for Victory Campaign, Jessica and her brother pitched in with everyone else. “We did everything. We did the butter—churned it every day. We were quite self-sufficient. We had fish too because Willy Hughes, who ran the farm, was a salmon fisherman.” Today her kitchen cupboard in Devonshire is lined with jars of home-grown arrowroot flour which she uses for cooking, as a thickener, and in baking. “It lasts forever, and you only need a teaspoon,” she explains. She would also use it to make arrowroot pudding for her children when they were babies to soothe their colic, the recipe for which was published in Old Bermuda Recipes. “I use it instead of flour quite often. I have a grandson who is gluten intolerant, so I make a lot of biscuits for him.”
There has been a resurgence in the use of arrowroot in recent years, as a healthier alternative to corn starch, particularly in gluten-free cooking. Unlike potato starch, it has no flavour and is highly nutritious. Despite this, few people in Bermuda are aware of its cultural and historic value. In 1978, six decades after Tommy Fox stopped growing the crop and the factory at Camden closed its doors, Clare Phillips wrote in the Bermuda Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Bulletin that “arrowroot has fallen into such general disuse that most people are not even sure what it is.” Today, not only are most people not sure what it is, arrowroot is also in danger of no longer being harvested at all on the island. “I think it’s important to keep the tradition going,” says Jessica of the responsibility which now falls solely on her shoulders. “I’m hoping that Jen [her daughter] will take it over,” she says. “I need to pass it on.”
RECIPE FOR PREPARING ARROWROOT STARCH
Given to Jessica Cox by Kitty Zuill
Dig in March and replant some roots
Scrape outer husks
Put in water and wash
Grate
Soak in pulp six hours
Squeeze through muslin (save water and let starch sink)
Soak pulp again for same period
Pour off water (save water after and let set)
Add fresh water and squeeze through muslin (save water)
Let set; pour off water and put in sieve to dry. Scrape off any brown crust. If sieves are used, the third sieve to have 136 threads to an inch.
ARROWROOT PUDDING
Recipe from Mrs H. J. Cox in Old Bermuda Recipes
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons arrowroot
1 quart boiling milk
1 tablespoon butter
Pinch of salt
Pinch of sugar
5 well beaten eggs
Directions:
Mix the arrowroot with a little cold water.
Pour the boiling milk into this and beat until smooth.
Add the butter, salt and sugar to taste.
When cold add the well beaten eggs and flavour with vanilla and lemon.
Pour into a baking dish without pastry, grate nutmeg over the top and bake to a golden brown.
