From fiery jerk meat to inventive seafood dishes and ubiquitous
rice and peas, the Jamaican diet is surprisingly varied, and the
Rasta preference for natural cooking means you can get good
vegetarian food fairly easily. Snacking is good, too, with beef,
vegetable or chicken patties the staple fare, and there is a vast
selection of fresh fruit and vegetables. Outside Kingston and the
north-coast resorts, international eating options are limited.
The classic - and addictive - Jamaican breakfast is ackee and
saltfish . The soft yellow flesh of the otherwise bland ackee
fruit is fried with onions, sweet and hot peppers, fresh tomatoes
and boiled, flaked salted cod. It's usually served with the
delicious spinach-like callaloo , boiled green bananas and
fried or boiled dumplings.
At most of Jamaica's cheaper restaurants and hotels,
chicken and fish are the mainstays of lunch and
dinner. Chicken is typically fried in a seasoned batter, jerked or
curried, while fish can be grilled, steamed with okra and pimento
pods, brown-stewed in a tasty sauce or " escovitched " -
served in a spicy sauce of onions, hot peppers and vinegar. "
Jerking " is the island's most distinctive cooking style.
Meat - usually chicken or pork, but occasionally fish - is seasoned
in a mixture of island-grown spices, including pimento, hot
peppers, cinnamon and nutmeg, and then grilled slowly, often for
hours, over a fire of pimento wood and under a cover of wooden
slats or corrugated zinc sheets in a customized oil drum.
Rice and peas (rice cooked with coconut, spices and red
kidney beans) is the accompaniment to most meals, though you'll
sometimes get bammy (a substantial bread made from cassava
flour), festival (a light, sweet, fried dumpling), sweet or
regular potatoes (the latter known as Irish potatoes), yam,
dasheen (like a yam, but chewier), Johnny cakes or fried or boiled
dumplings .
Jamaica's water is safe to drink, and locally bottled spring
water is widely available. For a tastier non-alcoholic
drink , look no further than the roadside piles of coconuts
in every town and village, often advertised with a sign saying "
ice-cold jelly ". Other soft drinks include Jamaica's own
Ting (a refreshing sparkling grapefruit drink), Malta (a fortifying
malt drink), throat-tingling ginger beers and fresh limeade.
Fresh fruit juices - tamarind, June plum, guava, soursop,
strawberry and cucumber - are always delicious if occasionally
over-sweet. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is among the best
and most expensive in the world, though the other local brews, such
as High Mountain, Low Mountain or Mountain Blend, are also
good.
The national beer is the excellent Red Stripe. Heineken
is widely available, as is locally brewed Guinness, which competes
with the sweeter Dragon as the island's stout of choice. Wray and
Nephew make the classic white overproof rum : cheap, potent,
available everywhere and best knocked back with a mixer of Ting.
There are plenty of less caustic brands of white rum, the smoothest
being C.J. Wray Dry. If you're after taste rather than effect, try
gold rums and the older, aged varieties such as Appleton Estate
12-year-old.