Jamaican Cuisine

Jamaican cuisine, like its people, is a product of a mix of cultures from around the world. Spanish, English, Chinese, East Indian, and other groups each brought their own tastes to the island.

Ackee: A red fruit that's poisonous until ripe

Alligator pear: A local name for an avocado

Bammy: Fried bread made from cassava flour

Bun: Spicy bread eaten with cheese

Callaloo: A leafy vegetable that resembles spinach

Cho-Cho: A member of the squash family

Cut cake: A sweet cake made with diced coconut and ginger toffee

Dasheen: A root vegetable used like a potato; some Jamaicans call it coco yam

Duckanoo: A dessert of African origin made with cornmeal, coconut, spices and brown sugar, tied up in a banana leaf and slowly cooked in boiling water

Escovitch: A style of cooking using vinegar, onions, and spices brought to Jamaica by the Spanish Jews

Festival: A bread similar to hush puppies served with jerk

Fish tea: A spicy fish bouillon

Garden egg: The local name for an eggplant

Gizzada: A coconut tart

Grater cake: A grated coconut and sugar confection

Janga: Crayfish cooked and sold as hot peppered shrimp by the women of Middle Quarters on the South Coast

Jerk: Jamaican barbecue

Mannish water: A spicy soup—a reported aphrodisiac—made from goat's head

Matrimony: A dessert using the star apple; usually served during the holidays

Otaheiti Apple: An apple that looks like a small, red pear

Pawpaw: Local name for papaya

Pepperpot soup: A peppery callaloo soup

Pimento: Called allspice in other parts of the world; the wood from these trees gives jerk its distinctive taste

Red pea soup: Made with kidney beans

Rice and peas: Rice and red kidney beans, an omnipresent lunch and dinner dish

Rundown: Pickled fish cooked in seasoned coconut milk

Solomon gundy: An appetizer made of pickled fish

Spinners: Twisted dumplings used in soup

Stamp and go: Small fish fritters