18/01/2022
Jersey is a confluence of influences, spilling forth an endless cache of world-class produce hauled fresh from its waters. Razorfishing, sand-eeling and limpeting are still practised by smaller outfits here and you’ll find no shortage of lobster claws, crab sandwiches, scallops and oysters on platters throughout the island.
There are three Michelin-endorsed restaurants on Jersey, but just as exquisite is the more humble fare of dedicated local producers, from Seymour Shellfish (17th-generation farmer John Le Seelleur tends 14 million oysters across 13 hectares) to Jerriaise d’Or goat farm, which sells its award-winning Fluffy Fuhka cheese via a roadside honesty box.
Away from food, you’ll find many nods to the island’s occupation by Germany in WWII, but for 2022, Jersey is also confronting its involvement in another part of history. In August, a new exhibition will open in the Victorian House at Jersey Museum, exploring the island’s connections to the transatlantic slave trade. A recent report revealed that the 19th-century townhouse that forms part of the museum was built using the profits of slavery, and the exhibition, based in the dining room of the house, will focus on the mahogany industry, in which many Jersey businesses and families were engaged, some holding plantations in British Honduras (now Belize), where enslaved people were forced to harvest the material.
