- Chicken rubbed with Scotch bonnet, allspice, thyme, scallion, ginger
- Pimento (allspice) wood smoke
- Served with festival dumplings, roast breadfruit or yam
Jerk Chicken
Jamaican jerk chicken. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Jerk is Jamaica's signature cooking: chicken (or pork) rubbed with a fiery paste of Scotch bonnet peppers, allspice (pimento), thyme, scallion and ginger, then slow-smoked over pimento wood. The name comes from the Spanish charqui, via the Maroons who perfected pit cooking in the mountains.
Real jerk comes off a charcoal or wood fire, chopped to order and served on butcher paper with festival (sweet fried dumplings) and roast yam. Boston Bay in Portland parish is the spiritual home: a row of jerk pits right on the beach.
Key ingredients
Where to try it
- Boston Bay, Portland: the jerk centre on the beach.
- Roadside jerk pits across the island, especially on weekends.
- Scotchies and similar jerk centres in Kingston and Montego Bay.