Taste Jamaica
Allspice, smoke and a Scotch bonnet that is not optional. Jamaican cooking is African technique on island produce, with Indian and Chinese indenture in the pot as well.
Jerk chicken is marinated in allspice, thyme, spring onion and chilli, then cooked over pimento wood if you can get it — a jerk pit is a method, not a bottled sauce. Rice and peas is kidney beans or gungo peas simmered in coconut with thyme and allspice, the Sunday plate that is really a rice. Ackee and saltfish is breakfast; curry goat is a party; festival is a fried dumpling that should be sweet and cornmeal-yellow. The jerk of Boston Bay is not identical to a Kingston drum. Wet jerk and dry rub both exist. The heat should be aromatic, not a dare.
28 recipes · 1 cuisine
Essential dishes
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More dishes
Further Jamaica listings, including shorter editorial recipes and imported methods.
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Regional cuisines
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26 quiz dishes. Optional — Passport stamps still come from cooking.
Take the Jamaica food quizFood history
West and Central African grilling and seasoning met Taíno pit cooking and island allspice. Enslaved cooks built the jerk method in the interior; the word's exact path is argued, the technique is not. Indian indenture brought curry logic and roti; Chinese indenture left a Jamaican-Chinese restaurant grammar. Saltfish arrived as a ration and became national breakfast. Bottled jerk sauce is a commercial layer on a wood-and-spice craft. Honesty means African genius under plantation violence, not a beach-barbecue slogan.
Common ingredients
Techniques
- jerk grilling
- pimento smoking
- coconut rice
- marinating
- frying dumplings