Jamaican Food Recipes

Jamaica is a Caribbean island. It lies in the Greater Antilles chain, and is the most populous English-speaking island in the Caribbean. Many people are aware of Jamaica for its music, especially reggae and ska, and for it being the birthplace of the Rastafarian movement. Nowadays however, more and more people are become aware of, and learning to appreciate, Jamaican cuisine.

Jamaica is home to a wide variety of different dishes, many of which making interesting use of spices. Although numerous different spices are used, two in particular which are found in many Jamaican recipes are Jamaican allspice and annatto. Jamaican allspice, which is also known as “Jamaican pepper”, “pimento”, or “pimenta”, is a hot and fiery spice. Annatto is very unusual, it comes from the pulp which surrounds the seeds of the achiote tree, and tastes rather like pepper mixed with nutmeg.

The national dish of Jamaica is saltfish and ackee (sometimes spelled “akee”). Saltfish is salted cod, which is rehydrated and washed before cooking. Ackee is type of fruit, which actually has a texture more like a vegetable, and is boiled. The cod is saut