Food of Jamaica. John DeMers

the buns, and at times the raisins and currants are hardly visible except as decorations.

      Jamaican weddings today have become much like those in the United States. But of more interest were the old country weddings, celebrated grandly and often attended by the whole village. They were preceded by many nights of preparation, usually consisting of ring games. A feed was held the night before the wedding for the groom. This consisted of curried ram goat and sometimes “dip and fall back,” a dish of salted shad cooked in coconut milk and served with a lot of rum. It is said that the goat’s testicles were roasted and served to the groom. These days, mannish water, a stew made of a goat’s organs and head is served to grooms the night before the wedding to increase virility.

      The day before the wedding a procession of young girls, all dressed in white, carried the wedding cakes on their heads to the bride’s house. The main cakes were in the form of pyramids, and each cake was covered with a white veil. The picturesque custom of young girls carrying the cakes on their heads has almost disappeared as transportation by cars is now used more often.

      The wedding feast differed from village to village, but usually it consisted of a huge meal of roast pig, curried goat and traditional side dishes. The Sunday following the celebrations, the couple attended church with members of the wedding party.

      While these traditions are slipping away, the flavors of the past are alive and well in Jamaica.

      The Joys of Jerk

      The island’s fiery food fetish has become a global addiction

      Jerk—the fiery food that is now popular throughout the globe—is truly a part of Jamaica’s history. From M.G. Lewis in 1834 to Zora Neale Hurston in 1939, chroniclers of the West Indies tell us of their flavorful encounters with the Maroons—and even with the Maroons’ favorite food, a spice and pepper-encrusted slow-smoked pork called “jerk.” The Maroons, escaped slaves living in Jamaica’s jungle interior, developed many survival techniques—but none more impressive than the way they hunted wild pigs, cleaned them between run-ins with the law, covered them with a mysterious spice paste and cooked them over an aromatic wood fire.

      Lewis gives us a vivid picture of a Maroon dinner of land tortoise and barbecued pig: “two of the best and richest dishes that I ever tasted, the latter in particular, which was dressed in the true Maroon fashion being placed on a barbecue, through whose interstices the steam can ascend, filled with peppers and spices of the highest flavor, wrapped in plantain leaves and then buried in a hole filled with hot stones by whose vapor it is baked, no particle of juice being thus suffered to evaporate.”

      A cook serves up jerk at Faiths Pen—a lively collection of fastfood stalls along the highway that crosses the island between Ocho Rios and Kingston.

      Even more exciting is Hurston’s description a century later of an actual hunting expedition with the Maroons. As an anthropologist, she was trained to discern cultural and ethnic truths. But in one extended passage, what she discovers is the unforgettable flavor of jerk pork.

      “All of the bones were removed, seasoned and dried over the fire to cook. Towards morning we ate our fill of jerked pork. It is more delicious than our American barbecue. It is hard to imagine anything better than pork the way the Maroons jerk it. When we had eaten all that we could, the rest was packed up with the bones and we started the long trek back to Accompong.”

      Thanks to Americans who have followed in Hurston’s footsteps, the jerk-scented “trek back to Accompong” has never ended. The Maroon method of cooking and preserving pork has become a Jamaican national treasure, inspiring commercial spice mixes, bottled marinades and the use of the word “jerk” around the world.

      The word “jerk” itself, as with so many in Jamaica, is something of a mystery. Most Jamaicans offer the non-scholarly explanation that the word refers to the jerking motion either in turning the meat over the coals or in chopping off hunks for customers. Still, there is a more serious explanation.

      “Jerk,” writes F. G. Cassidy (who penned the Dictionary of Jamaican English published in London in 1961), “is the English form of a Spanish word of Indian origin.” This process of linguistic absorption is so common in the Caribbean that it is persuasive here. Cassidy says that the original Indian word meant to prepare pork in the manner of the Quichua Indians of South America. Thus, jerking was learned from the Indians, either the Arawaks or others from across the Caribbean, and preserved by the Maroons. There’s also an undeniable link to the Dutch word gherken, meaning “to pickle or marinate.”

      Until recently, jerk remained a dish made with pork, true to its roots. Now roadside pits and “jerk centers” dish up chicken, fish, shrimp—even lobster. Until recently, jerk was found only in parts of Jamaica with strong Maroon traditions, including the interior known as Cockpit Country and a tiny slice of Portland on the northeast coast at Boston Bay. Now jerk is sold everywhere, and its irresistible scent, which impressed Lewis and Hurston in their day, fills the air.

      At this jerk stand in Port Antonio, near the mecca of jerk, Boston Bay, chicken is cooked over coals made from burning wood and pimento (allspice) branches. Jamaicans short on space often saw oil drums in half and build a fire on the bottom of the drum while cooking the meat on a grill above it.

      Several of the best jerk purveyors are still on the beach at Boston Bay, somewhat off the tourist track and therefore frequented by Jamaicans. These eateries are little more than thatch-roofed huts built over low-lying, smoldering fires. On top of these fires you’ll often find sheets of tin, blown off some roof in a storm, that are used as griddles. The meat is cooked on these sheets, covered with plantain leaves.