Local Fruit- Jamaican Food Experience

Jamaica was once called the "land of wood and water". With its rivers, waterfalls, mountains, and fertile plains, it produces various sorts of exotic fruits. The fruit vendors can be seen not only at the farmers market, but also on the beach, next to the roads, parking lots, etc.

Here is a street banana vendor in downtown Negril. Note the wooden stick that is used here to prop the trunk door open.

Negril farmers market is conveniently located next to Juici Patties. We picked up some small bananas, mango and a papaya. The nice lady pealed them and cut them up for us.

Ackee-

Ackee is commonly used in many Jamaican dishes, including meat dishes, omelets, etc. It grows on trees, so it is virtually free. The fruit must ripen on the tree, which causes the pods to open. Only the white parts are eatable and the black seeds are discarded. Also, this fruit must be cleaned and cooked properly, otherwise it can be poisonous. When prepared properly, ackee has high nutritional value and is rich in essential fatty acids, vitamin A, zinc, and protein.

If you would like to see some dishes that contain ackee, please click here.



Here are a pineapple that we saw at the Mayfield falls.

On the way back from Mayfiled falls we saw this guy (picture below) selling fruit next to the road. We stopped and I ordered a coconut. Jackie asked the guy to first hold the basket on his head so that we could take a photo. Cool! Then he cut my coconut and stuck a straw in it. It was refreshing, except it was not easy to drink since the road had too many pot holes.

More coconuts sold at the street stand.


Coconuts sold at the parking lot on the way to the beach:



Banana tree

Curry root- really smells like curry!

Saltfish with vegetables and callaloo

We picked up this breakfast at Sweet Spice outside of Negril on the way to Mayflower falls. Jackie, out taxi driver, recommended it, and we trusted Jackie in his choice of good local food. The restaurant was inside of this dilapidated plaza which had bars on all doors and windows. There were no other cars or people there, and absolutely no tourists. We followed Jackie into the empty restaurant. One of the waitresses came up to us to take our order. She did not give us the menu, just told us our choices: (1) saltfish, (2) chicken, and (3) liver. Jackie stayed till the waitress took our order and made sure we understood each other, then went back to his car to wait for us, or whatever funny business he does while waiting.

So, back to the saltfish. First impressions: very greasy, also salty. I like greasy, so this is a more than adequate breakfast for me. Greasy saltfish was mixed with greasy peppers, carrots and zucchinis. The green stuff is callaloo. Callaloo is a leafy veritable (similar to spinach or chard). Callaloo is sauteed with other stuff that blends in. I could also identify finely chopped green beans in this mixture. This dish is served with some pastry on the side, sort of sweet, but tastes good when you dip it in the seasoned fish grease. This was all excellent and there was nothing left on my palte (even the veggies were gone!)

Patties- Jamaican Food Experience

A creation influenced by various phases of English colonialism, patties contain spices from India, Africa and Jamaica. Patty is another traditional Jamaican specialty and is essentially deep fried flaky pastry filled with various meats or vegetables.

We tried fish and lobster patties at one of the food vendor shacks at the beach. It was fun to watch them make it- stretching the dough, filling it with shredded fish and veggies, then closing it and dropping it into the hot oil. They were made by a nice German lady who spoke with a heavy Jamaican accent and had long blond dreadlocks. These patties were fairly big and were enough for a meal. They had very mild flavor and we ate them with a home made sauce which was served in a ketchup bottle.

Later on, we found out form our taxi driver Jackie, about a good local patty place in downtown Negril. So, we headed there the next morning. The place is called “Juici Patties” and it looked just like any run down fast food restaurant in the US, except it also had bars on the door and windows. "So much more" in the extension of the store name indicates that they also have juice and coconut bread.

There was a long line and everyone was ordering patties (well, that’s pretty much all they had). We got beef patties, as we heard they were most popular. Then we took our patties to the beach to enjoy them with the full effect. These patties were very delicious. They had lots of flavor and were a bit spicy.

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Not so light breakfast- Jamaican Food Experience

I am normally not a breakfast fan, but in Jamaica, I was impressed with their breakfast food and never missed a meal. Their breakfast is very heavy, even I admit that. It usually consists of something fried or greasy, callaloo or another vegetable, and a some bread form- dumplings, yam or something bread like, and sometimes a fried banana on the side.

Here are some breakfast experiences:


Saltfish with vegetables and callaloo-
We picked up this breakfast at Sweet Spice outside of Negril on the way to Mayflower falls. Jackie, out taxi driver, recommended it, and we trusted Jackie in his choice of good local food. The restaurant was inside of this dilapidated plaza which had bars on all doors and windows. There were no other cars or people there, and absolutely no tourists. We followed Jackie into the empty restaurant. One of the waitresses came up to us to take our order. She did not give us the menu, just told us our choices: (1) saltfish, (2) chicken, and (3) liver. Jackie stayed till the waitress took our order and made sure we understood each other, then went back to his car to wait for us, or whatever funny business he does while waiting.
So, back to the saltfish. First impressions: very greasy, also salty. I like greasy, so this is a more than adequate breakfast for me. Greasy saltfish was mixed with greasy peppers, carrots and zucchinis. The green stuff is callaloo. Callaloo is a leafy veritable (similar to spinach or chard). Callaloo is sauteed with other stuff that blends in. I could also identify finely chopped green beans in this mixture. This dish is served with some pastry on the side, sort of sweet, but tastes good when you dip it in the seasoned fish grease. This was all excellent and there was nothing left on my palte (even the veggies were gone!)


A side plate was also served with this dish containing a baked banana, 2 fat slices of yams and a dumpling. No bummy this time :(




Chicken in sauce with callaloo-
Continuing experience from Sweet Spice. Svetlana ordered chicken in greasy sauce (don't know the name, since they didn't have menus). Needless to say it tasted delicious! But, there was a challenge here- we noticed that quite often if not every time when small pieces of meat are served, they are full of small sharp bones. In fact, the meat is grilled as a whole, but when they serve it they cut it up into small pieces all together with the bones. So you have to be careful and eat slowly.



Drinks-
Still at Sweet Spice. We learned that that everything gets cheaper as you move away from the tourist attractions and hotels. Since this restaurant was not near any tourist places in Negril, it was not overpriced. Actually, it was quite cheap, so we treated ourselves with a blended mixed juice (papaya, pineapple, orange).
We also had coffee. Since their coffee is quite strong, we asked for milk. What we got was one small metal container (lower left corner) with some thick paste. The waitress said: "This is milk". So, I split it between our 2 coffees ready to ask for more. However, when we tried the coffee, it had a very sweet caramel flavor. Later on we asked Jackie what it was and he told us it was condensed milk. That's what they normally have with their coffee, but they still serve regular milk at hotels for tourists.



Ackee and saltfish-
Ackee is fruit that grows on ackee trees. You can read more on about ackee in my fruit post. Ackee and saltfish is traditional Jamaican food. It is different to see fruit mixed with meat or eggs. But in Jamaica they eat ackee with everything. From what I gather, the reason for this is because ackee grows on trees, unlike money.



Deep fried fish with veggies and fried bread-
This was my first breakfast in Jamaica- deep fried fish and deep fried bread. Great combo! This bread reminds me of "ustipci", which I will have to make one time and post. You have to watch out though, these snapper fillets are not boneless.



Ackee and saltfish omlet-
Last breakfast at the hotel, Khus Khus Negril. Heather, the hotel manager was trying to get us to eat there every single day. But we preferred eating at the beach or local restaurants. Finally, the very last day we decided to make Heather happy and try out the hotel restaurant.



I am also not a coffee fan, but I happily drank Jamaican coffee, with brown sugar and milk every morning and it was good.



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Jerk Pork & Jerk Chicken- Jamaican Food Experience

Jerk chicken and jerk pork can be bought on every corner in Jamaica. Around noon, they open up these can looking grills on the streets, and start smoking them- smells so good and makes your mouth water for a good Jamaican meal. I think it is their national fast food (not very fast thought, but nothing is very fast in Jamaica). It is basically grilled meat with jerk seasoning rub or marinated in jerk sauce. Jerk seasoning is spicy, but I can still eat it, it's that good.

This jerk pork was so tender and tasty. It was marinated and grilled to perfection! It was served with steamed veggies, grilled banana and a jerk sauce which was too spicy for me to eat.

We also ate jerk chicken at another place but forgot to bring the camera that evening. Can you believe that? We took over 2,000 photos, and often carried around 2 cameras each! Still, we both forgot to bring a camera to document 1/2 jerk chicken which took 1.5 hours to make it to our table. As I said, nothing is fast in Jamaica, but the time you spend waiting is well worth the food. Meals are prepared fresh, and that takes time. Fresh and quick just don't go together in the food world.

Don't worry, I did not leave Jamaica without a jerk seasoning package! There will be some jerk chicken at my house sometimes soon!


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Steamed Fish- Jamaican Food Experience

Happy New Year everybody! I wish you another great year with plenty of good food and tasty memories.

This is my first posting in the new year. Since I just came back from Jamaica, and I was very impressed with their local dishes, I will start the year with several posts about local Jamaican food. Unfortunately I don't have the recipes for those, but I can't wait to share the tasty photos with you all!

I arrived to Negril on Christmas day after the whole day of traveling. My friend Svetlana was already there, and she waited for me to have dinner together. I was tired and hungry. As soon as I got changed we called a taxi to take us to get some food. Our taxi driver, Jackie, left us at restaurant called Push Cart. I had no expectations. This was my first encounter with delicious Jamaican food.

First, the drink menu was very exotic. Since rum and coconuts are big in the Caribbean, I ordered a drink called "drunk coconut". Drunk coconut contains rum and pineapple juice in coconut water. It was good, but so huge, I could not finish it.

It was difficult to pick anything on the food menu, since I've never hear of any of those dishes (specialties were steamed fish, curried goat, jerk pork, braised oxtail, curry conck). I ordered steamed fish. Much to my surprise, I got the whole fish on my plate with okra, bammy and veggies on the side in a delicious slimy sauce. Bammy is a vegetable, similar to a yam, however if no one told me, I would have thought that I was eating corn bread. It is kind of dry, but in this slimy spice, it was very tasty.


I was too tired to deal with picking out tiny bones out of my whole snapper in a candle light, but it was so delicious, I decided to was well worth the effort. When I was finished, the waiter came to take my plate and gave me a compliment. He said: "You did great, you ate this like a gentleman!" I was proud to be complimented on my eating skills, but I was never before called a gentleman. So, I asked him to repeat himself and so he said: "Ya mon, you ate this like a gentleman, you did well."


I was stuffed and I already couldn't wait to taste my next Jamaican dish!


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