Favourite Jamaican Food Recipes 

*ACKEE & SALTFISH*   *DRINKS*   *CAKES*   *MEATS*   *PORRIDGE*

  *PUDDINGS*   *SIDES*   *SOUPS*   *SNACKS*   

About Jamaican Food Culture

 Jamaica is known for being a friendly island with a rich heritage, a wonderful culture and great food. Jamaican food is a blend of influences, predominantly from Africa, UK and India. Popular foods in Jamaica include the national dish of ackee & saltfish, oxtail and beans, curried goat, jerk chicken, stew peas and cowfoot & beans. To accompany the wonderful meat dishes, Jamaicans eat hearty and delicious side dishes such as rice & peas and breadfruit salad. In many cases, Jamaicans use food items that are readily available to them. Common food items include local foods such as yellow yam, soft yam, dasheen, breadfruit and cassava.

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Drinks are also very important in Jamaica. While common alocholic drinks are made, many Jamaican households have their own secret recipes on how to make popular local drinks. Many of the local drinks can be found in Jamaican households all over Jamaica on a Sunday evening, when most Jamaicans sit down to a full Sunday dinner. Traditional and popular drinks include, carrot punch, dragon punch, pumpkin drink, beetroot drink and cucumber drink. Of course, in Jamaica, every drink recipe may be helped by a little "whites"  (white rum).

Walk along any street in Jamaica and you are likely to find vendors selling local snack items such as gizzadas, peanut cakes, drops, grater cakes, as well as totos. Easter and Christmas are important times on the Jamaican food calendar and you will find kitchens buzzing as Jamaican cooks prepare special easter buns or christmas black fruitcakes. In some cases, persons opt to buy pre-made fruit & rum cakes and easter buns, but you will still find many at home bakers making up their own easter bun recipe come easter and for christmas, the preparation starts early with the soaking of the mixed fruits. Hell a top, Hell a bottom. Hallelujah inna di middle. Every Jamaican should be familiar with that saying as in ole time days, cooks without the use of ovens had to use their coal stoves and dutch pots to create sumptious Jamaican puddings. Common puddings include cornmeal pudding and sweet potato pudding (not to be confused with sweet yams found in the USA). Many people do not know that many good Jamaican cooks add some grated yam to the sweet potato mixture, and now that you know, you can try it next time. 

Jamaicans are very big on breakfast items. In ole' time Jamaica, persons use to start their day with a good strong cup of coffee. Jamaica is known as having one of the world's premium coffee which is grown on only certain parts of the blue mountain in Jamaica. Coffee may be sweetened with milk or in some cases, coconut milk is used as a milk substitute, once again showing that Jamaicans use the most readily available resource. Other common breakfast drinks include hot chocolate as chocolate balls are readily available in both markets and supermarkets around the island. To use, island tea is then sweetened with condensed milk, cows milk or coconut milk.

Another common staple breakfast item is porridge. Jamaicans LOVE their porridge, and if you visit the island you will see many different varieties of porridges being sold whether on the street from vendors or in food establishments. Popular porridges include hominy corn, banana, plantain, rice, oats and peanut porridge. Some Jamaicans are also known to get very creative with carrot porridge among others. You will find that in Jamaica, main meat dishes are also eaten at breakfast and so it is not uncommon to see curried chicken on the breakfast item as well as the lunch and dinner menu.

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One thing Jamaicans will not do without is their bread! Jamaicans love bread, especially hard dough bread. As such, breakfast may include boiled egg and slices of buttered hard dough bread. For those who eat breakfast on the go, coco bread is a common substitute and it also goes well with Jamaican beef patty, another multipurpose food item. In Jamaica, patties are reasonably cheap and are eaten at any hour of the day. The most popular patty is the beef patty, especially Tastee and Juici Beef patties. However, in recent years, patties may now include fillings of vegetables, soy or curried chicken.

Every major event in Jamaica is likely to feature among its food items a soup dish. There is hardly any funeral in Jamaica where manish (mannish) water is not served whether after the funeral, or at the nigh night; (night before the funeral service). Mannish water uses the head and belly of the goat, parts that were easily available to the average slave back when it was too expensive to buy better cuts of goat meat (commonly, yet incorrectly termed mutton). Cow cod soup is another popular soup, long touted as an aphrodiasiac and many men flock to buy this soup wherever available. Now, do not for a moment think that cow cod has anything to do with the cow's tongue, rather the cod is a nice word for the testicles of a bull ( in Jamaica you might hear the term bull cow!).

Now unless a Jamaican family worships on Saturday, it would be a weekly ritual for soup to be the evenings meal as the householder would have gone to market earlier on the Saturday and with limited time would throw together a soup. One such soup is the pumpkin beef soup as the beef would have been fresh from market and needed no refrigeration (in days past).