Jamaica Me Hungry

If memory of food is the most indelible connection to a place-definitely the case for me-then Negril, Jamaica, will forever be a smoked marlin and ackee quesadilla. I ate it where it was invented-to my knowledge, the only place on the planet that offers it on a menu, a boutique hotel called Tensing Pen. It's a cliff-side aerie so oozing with all the good things one hopes to find when traveling but so seldom does that to call it merely charming would be to sell it short.

That's the problem with Jamaica. Too often it gets sold short, thanks to a grievous misconception that to visit the island automatically means one must bunk down at one of its sprawling and generic all-inclusive resorts, a prospect only slightly more appealing than holding your wedding reception at a Wal-Mart. Truth is, Jamaica boasts some of the most alluring small hotels and inns in the Caribbean, gemlike properties with a distinct sense of style and place. On a recent sojourn, I sampled the best of them, from the dreamy strands of Negril to an idyllic hideaway along the north coast that once belonged to author and James Bond-creator Ian Fleming.

But back to the food, which is always one of the highlights of any trip to Jamaica. Nancy Beckham, an ex-pat Texan and the manager of Tensing Pen, invented the smoked marlin and ackee quesadilla. Ackee, for the uninitiated, is the national fruit of Jamaica and, hanging from a tree, looks like a waxy, rough-skinned mango. Mellow and rather cheese-like, it resembles scrambled eggs and most often turns up at breakfast when it is cooked with salt fish and peppers. Coupled with a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, which even in its country of origin sells for about $22 a pound, salt fish and ackee is about as bracing a way to start a Caribbean morning as one can have without proceeding directly to rum. So intrigued was I by the combination of ackee and smoked marlin that I temporarily put aside my aversion to eating billfish-they should be released, not butchered-and gave it a try. I am now willing to revise my billfish policy as it applies to marlin: If they absolutely must be killed, then the only allowable use of the meat should be in smoked marlin and ackee quesadillas, which if consumed on a more widespread basis could surely go a long way to achieving lasting world peace and rectifying man's inhumanity to man.

For the gluttonous record, I ate a platterful of the quesadillas, knowing I would never have the chance to duplicate them at home. Marlin is easy enough to get, but ackee is another matter. If picked before they are ripe, ackee contain a couple of rather virulent amino acids that have been known to kill people and, thanks to an altogether unenlightened regulation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, fresh ackee cannot be imported to the States.

Of course, it could be argued that anything eaten in the open-air dining room at Tensing Pen would be rendered wonderful simply by the setting. Part of a unique collection of small hotels known as Intimate Negril, Tensing Pen occupies a serene setting on Negril's West End, a long stretch of limestone bluffs that rise above the seven-mile white sand beach that is Negril's main attraction. Its 16 small villas, nestled under mahogany and Jamaican cedar trees, are brightly and simply decorated with furnishings made of bamboo and local hardwoods. There's no beach to speak of, but that's OK, because the sea has carved out a honeycomb of caves and grottoes in the limestone bluff, making it a perfect place for idling about on a raft or exploring by mask and fin. Those seeking cheap thrills can make the 30-foot leap from a wooden swing bridge suspended over one of the coves.

Although its name might suggest a storage place for stress, Tensing Pen was actually named after a dog. The hotel's original owners were Buddhists who owned a big black Lab named Tensing, in honor of Tensing Nordei, the Nepalese sherpa who accompanied Sir Edmund Hillary on the first successful assault Mount Everest.

"In Jamaican parlance, a house or a yard is often referred to as a pen," explained Nancy Beckham. "That dog was so well known and so popular among the locals that whenever they would pass by they'd say: 'Dat's Tensing pen.' And so that's what it came to be known."

As tough as it was to leave such a serendipitous spot, the north-shore town of Oracabessa beckoned. Here, overlooking a secluded cove, sits a gracious three-bedroom dwelling where the open-air windows have never known a pane of glass and where Fleming, who sold more than 40 million books during his lifetime, wrote all 14 of his James Bond spy thrillers.

The former British intelligence officerturned-novelist spent 20 winters in Jamaica before his death in 1964, seeking inspiration from the island's natural bounty. Glittering tropical waters, stunning waterfalls, a lush and wondrous countryside-all are as much characters in the three novels Fleming set in Jamaica (Dr. No, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun) as the debonair Bond, his comely paramours and his many treacherous foes. Fleming was so smitten by the island's wildlife that many believe he borrowed the name of his hero from that of another James Bond, the Jamaican author and ornithologist who penned The Birds of the West Indies.

"Would these books ever have been written if I had not been living in the gorgeous vacuum of a Jamaican holiday?" Fleming once wrote to a friend. "I doubt it."

Jamaica's romantic lure first enchanted Fleming during a 1943 visit, and on a return trip in 1946 he bought a parcel of oceanfront that, curiously enough, was previously the site of a track for racing donkeys, a favorite sport in the Caribbean. Fleming built his dream home over the next few years, calling it Goldeneye, perhaps as a play on the name of the nearby town of Oracabessa, which is a corruption of the Spanish for golden head. Some Fleming scholars think the estate's name might be tied to his tour of duty in the Royal Navy during World War II, when he helped plot Operation Goldeneye, a plan for defending Gibraltar.

Now lovingly tended and preserved by Island Outpost, the upscale resort chain that has three other properties in Jamaica, Goldeneye features a cluster of villas in addition to the original main house where Fleming wrote his wildly popular novels and entertained guests who included the likes of Errol Flynn, Elizabeth Taylor and Truman Capote. The main house contains some of its original furnishings, including rattan sofas and chairs and a wooden desk where Fleming spent mornings writing. There's a freeform pool with a 30-foot lap area and access to a variety of watersports, including kayaks and Jet skis.

Over the years, guests at Goldeneye have donated trees to plant on the property, with proceeds going to a local charity. Among the eclectic plantings-a lemon tree from Martha Stewart, a mango tree from Pierce Brosnan and a cinnamon tree courtesy of Willie Nelson.

I stayed in the Commander's Room, Fleming's former bedroom, with its massive four-poster bed draped with a gauzy mosquito net. Just outside was my bath garden, a private enclave, lush with heliconia and birds of paradise, and featuring a clawfoot bathtub.

The house came with its own chef, on hand to prepare meals at all hours of the day, and dinner-curried goat, fresh snapper, lots of fruit-was served beneath a pair of fig trees overlooking the Caribbean. Afterward we sat there, listening to the lulling murmur of the sea and letting the "gorgeous vacuum" that inspired Fleming cast its spell on us.

IF YOU GO

Rates at Tensing Pen, www.tensingpen.com, range from $75 a night for a bungalow in the off-season to $430 a night for the Great House from mid-December through mid-April. Other Intimate Negril locations can be found at www.intimatenegril.com.

Goldeneye, the Ian Fleming house, sleeps six people and rents for $2,600 to $3,600 a night, depending on the season. One-bedroom villas start at $695 a night. All Island Outpost properties can be booked through www.islandoutpost.com.