News / st Pauls carnival
More than just jerk chicken at St Paul’s Carnival 2018
Pushing a blue trolley along Argyle Road, a woman balanced a sign above her head: ‘water melon £1’. Just a few hundred yards away, a bar in the front garden of a house was selling small bottles of prosecco for £5 next to another stall selling jerk chicken.
There is never a shortage of jerk chicken – nor Red Stripe or rum punch – at St Paul’s Carnival, but it’s certainly not the only food and drink on offer.
The stall next to Shop 3 on Grosvenor Road sold out of slushies soon after 5pm, with the man in charge borrowing a microphone to assure his customers that they would be back in a about 45 minutes.
is needed now More than ever
At the other end of the street close to its junction with Ashley Road was an East Timorese stall serving the likes of chicken satay and lamb stew. Nearby, three ladies in diracs were selling Somali food including red lentils with spinach and rice.
This year was New Bristol Brewery‘s first Carnival, with DJ Scrapilous providing the tunes outside their brewery on Wilson Street as a pop-up stall from Asado provided the burgers.
“Nice day, nice weather, nice music, let’s play some reggae,” DJ Scrapilous shouted before confusingly playing Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley, his decks next to the ‘Shamrock Jamrock Bar’.
Along Wilson Street was a microcosm of the day: toilets inside houses for 50p a few doors down from a ‘clean toilet’ for £1, chicken nuggets and chips for sale out of one window, and cans of Thatchers Gold out of another.
In St Paul’s Park, the Get Fat With Us burger bar vied for customers next to a pick’n’mix truck and an ice cream van; while in nearby Milk Teeth cafe, owner Josh Bowker was selling chilled cans of ginger beer and Ting through one window.
But it was the smell of jerk chicken that once again was the overriding smell of the carnival.
In front of Silent Hobo’s ‘welcome to St Paul’s’ mural on Ashley Road, smoke from Aunty Lois’ Unity Kitchen – jerk chicken, curry goat, fried fish, and rice and peas – was blowing across the crowds, cans of Red Stripe in hand.
Cooking up some jerk chicken on Portland Square
All photos by Jon Craig / @joncraig_photos
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
