If you only eat five things in Jamaica, start with ackee and saltfish, jerk chicken, oxtail, escovitch fish and a beef patty. Between them they cover breakfast, the roadside, Sunday dinner, the beach and the bakery.
Jamaican food borrows from everyone who has lived on the island: the Taíno, West Africans, the Spanish, the British, Indian and Chinese workers who arrived after slavery ended. You can taste all of them on one plate.
Mek wi nyam.
Let’s eat.
The five to try first
1. Ackee and saltfish
The national dish. Ackee, the national fruit, is cooked with salted cod, onion, tomato and Scotch bonnet, and usually eaten at breakfast with fried dumplings. Ackee came from West Africa, and the fruit is only safe once its pod has opened on the tree.
2. Jerk chicken (or pork)
Meat rubbed with a seasoning built on Scotch bonnet and pimento (allspice), then smoked slowly. The method goes back to the Taíno, and the Maroons kept it alive. Eat it from a roadside jerk centre, not a hotel buffet.
3. Oxtail
Oxtail slow-cooked in a rich brown stew. Brown stew is a Spanish-influenced way of cooking, and Chinese Jamaican cooks added soy sauce, ginger and escallion. It’s a Sunday favourite, served with rice and peas.
4. Escovitch fish
Whole fried fish topped with onion, carrot and Scotch bonnet pickled in vinegar. The name and the vinegar come from the Spanish escabeche. Order it by the sea.
5. Beef patty
A flaky turnover filled with spiced minced beef, sold in bakeries all over the island. It has Spanish and Cornish ancestors, and Chinese Jamaican families perfected and commercialised it in the 1960s and 70s. Many Jamaicans eat it inside a soft coco bread.
Also worth ordering
- Rice and peas: rice cooked with red kidney beans or gungo peas (pigeon peas). The side that comes with almost everything.
- Curry goat: Indian workers brought curry and turmeric to Jamaica during indentureship, and curry goat became a classic at parties and Sunday dinners.
- Festival: a slightly sweet fried dumpling, the usual partner for jerk and fried fish.
- Bammy: a flat cassava bread with Taíno roots, often fried and served with fish.
- Callaloo: a leafy green, steamed with onion and tomato. The Taíno grew and ate it long before anyone else arrived.
- Brown stew chicken: the everyday version of the oxtail above.
Something to drink
- Sorrel: a deep red drink of hibiscus, ginger and spice, one of the island’s Christmas mainstays.
- Blue Mountain coffee: grown in the mountains above Kingston, and famous enough to be worth bringing home.
Where to eat it
The best Jamaican food is usually the least formal: jerk centres by the road, cookshops serving a few dishes a day, bakeries for patties, and fish spots on the beach where you choose your fish and wait while it’s fried. A common mistake visitors make is eating only at their resort, which is often the least Jamaican food on the island.
Good to know: Scotch bonnet is very hot. If you’d like your food milder, ask before it’s cooked, because the pepper goes in at the start.
Sources
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade: national symbols (ackee the national fruit; ackee and saltfish the national dish)
- Jamaica Information Service: the national fruit (West African origin; only gather once the pods open)
- Wikipedia: Jamaican cuisine (influences; jerk, brown stew, escovitch, patty, curry, festival, bammy, callaloo, gungo peas, sorrel, Blue Mountain coffee)
- Wikipedia: Jerk (cooking)
Photo: Gabre Cameron / Unsplash. Ackee and saltfish with fried dumplings, Kingston.