Press: September 30, 1997
When flavors mingle:
Native Jamaican offers his music, spices to Carrboro and beyond
By Susan Broili
The Chapel Hill Herald, Sept. 30, 1997
Pluto brings the sounds and flavors of his native Jamaica to town. His Caribbean Bliss tastes like the jerk sauce used to spice chicken and pork in his Caribbean island home. His band, Plutopia, plays world-beat music, influenced by the reggae that originated on his island.
Now, Pluto lives in Carrboro where he creates the dry spice blend and music for the band he started after he came from Jamaica to New York in 1986. He moved here in 1990. “Music is spiritual. It hits a place inside of you not many other things can,” Pluto said.
The spice hits the taste buds.
Pluto said he became homesick for Jamaican jerk sauce and set out to duplicate it by using dry spices, imported from home by way of New York. He uses three kinds of hot peppers, thyme, salt, onion, garlic and his own spice mixture inspired by the blend developed in Jamaica to preserve and cure meat at a time when there was no refrigeration in the same way that jerky developed in the United States, Pluto said.
He decided to make a dry spice because it was easier to make and use than a bottled sauce. Just sprinkle the spice over chicken, pork, beef, and bake or grill, he said.
While Jamaicans like their jerk sauce fiery hot, Pluto designed his blend so people taste the flavors first and then the hot taste; he makes mild, with just a hint of hotness, and a hotter blend. He’s working on a sodium-free blend and another mixture for tofu and seafood.
He began making and marketing the blend 2 1/2 years ago after he had used some on baked chicken and served it to friends, who encouraged him to sell it. Weaver Street Market was the first store to carry Caribbean Bliss and now it may be found at gourmet food stores in the Triangle as well as Charlotte, Wilmington, Virginia and Baltimore.
