List of Jamaican dishes and foods facts for kids
This is a list of Jamaican dishes and foods. Jamaican cuisine includes a mixture of cooking techniques, flavors, spices and influences from the indigenous people on the island of Jamaica, and the Africans who have inhabited the island. It is also influenced by the crops introduced into the island from tropical West Africa and Southeast Asia, which are now grown locally. Jamaican cuisine includes dishes from the different cultures brought to the island, while other dishes are novel or a fusion of techniques and traditions. A wide variety of seafood, tropical fruits, and meats are available.
Contents
Jamaican dishes and foods
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- Ackee and saltfish, made from the local fruit ackee and dried and salted cod (saltfish). This is the national dish of Jamaica. It is often served with bread, Jamaican fried dumplings, bammy (cassava bread) or roasted breadfruit.
- Bammy, a kind of savoury cassava bread
- Breadfruit, served roasted, fried or boiled.
- Calabaza
- Callaloo, Jamaican spinach-like veggie
- Cassava
- Coco bread, made to sandwich the Jamaican patty
- Cornbread bun-like pastry
- Cow foot, stewed
- Curry goat
- Curry Chicken
- Dumpling, served boiled, fried, and/or baked
- Escoveitch fish
- Green bananas, eaten boiled, or sliced and fried to make banana chips
- Jamaican festival, similar to Hushpuppy
- Hard dough bread (hardo bread)
- Jamaican patty, a savoury and spicy pastry filled with meats (beef, curried chicken, shrimp, lobster, etc), or other ingredients like ackee, callaloo, cheese, soy, steamed vegetables and more
- Jerk meats usually jerked: chicken, and pork
- Oxtail with (broad beans)
- Pan chicken (jerked chicken prepared and sold by street food vendors along with hard dough bread)
- Peanut, available raw, or hot and roasted as street food
- Peg bread
- Peppered shrimp, spicy seasoned and cooked (red in colour)
- Plantain, eaten green or ripe as is; can be boiled or fried. Usually served as side dishes.
- Porridge, popular flavours include oatmeal, cornmeal, peanut, banana, plantain, and hominy corn porridge.
- Rice and peas, the most popular style of rice for everyday use, and is a Sunday staple of most Jamaican households
- Roast yam and saltfish (either 'cooked up' or roasted as well)
- Roast Conch
- Roti
- Run down, a dish consisting of pickled mackerel, coconut milk, herbs and spices
- Solomon gundy, a salt herring pâté
- Stamp and Go, dried and salted cod (saltfish) fritters
- Stew peas, a stew of red peas (kidney beans) which may be vegetarian or have pieces of meat added such as cured pig's tail
- Sugarcane, peeled, which is chewed to obtain the juice, or can be bought as bottled sugarcane juice
- Sweet bread, softer than normal bread with a slight sweetness
- Sweet potato
- Taro, locally known as dasheen and coco
- Taro dumpling
- Tripe and Beans
- Water crackers
- Yam
Fruits
- Ackee
- Acerola cherry
- Breadfruit
- Coconut- young green coconuts provide coconut water and jelly, while the older coconuts are grated to make jamaican desserts, sweets and coconut milk
- Custard apple
- Guava
- Guinep
- Jackfruit
- June plum (Tahitian apple)
- Mango, many species available locally. The popular species are locally called East Indian, Number 11, Julie, Milli, Stringy, Tommy Atkins, Blackie, Bombay and Graham.
- Naseberry (known as Sapodilla throughout the rest of the Caribbean)
- Otaheite apple (Malay apple)
- Paw-paw (papaya)
- Passion fruit
- Pineapple
- Pomegranate
- Soursop
- Starapple
- Starfruit
- Sweetsop
- Tamarind
Desserts and sweets
- Asham
- Blue Draws, also called tie-a-leaf because it is cooked in tied banana leaves
- Bulla cake
- Busta coconut sweets (Bustamante Backbone)
- Cocktion
- Coconut drop (Cut cake)
- Cornmeal Pudding
- Devon House Ice Cream (variety of quality flavours)
- Gizzada, also called Pinch-Me-Round
- Grater cake
- Peanut Drops
- Plantain Tart
- Rock cake
- Rum cake
- Spice Bun / Easter Bun, a popular sweet loaf (sometimes includes raisins or fruit), regular Bun is eaten all year, Easter Bun is often eaten around Easter
- Sweet Potato Pudding
- Tamarind Balls, tamarind fruit rolled into balls and lightly coated with sugar
- Toto
Herbs, spices and condiments
- Allspice, known locally as pimento
- Cinnamon
- Cloves
- Curry powder, Jamaican or Indian, which features a blend of turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cumin, allspice, black pepper and cloves. Turmeric is the predominant spice and accounts for curry powder's yellow colour.
- Escallion
- Garlic
- Ginger
- Jamaican jerk spice, a blend of spices featuring allspice, locally known as pimento
- Nutmeg
- Pickapeppa sauce (usually made from small amounts of scotch bonnet pepper, and vinegar)
- Rosemary
- Scotch bonnet pepper
- Soya sauce
- Thyme leaves
- Turmeric
Soups
Soups play an important role in the Jamaican diet, not only as appetizers, but also as main lunch and dinner dishes because they are filling on their own with tubers/staples (such as yam, sweet potato, white potato, breadfruit, Jamaican boiled dumplings, dasheen and coco), vegetables (such as carrot, okra and cho-cho/chayote) and meat. Many Jamaican families enjoy soup for lunch and dinner. Soup is often had alone, but may be served with hard dough bread or Jamaican water crackers. Soups are almost always served piping hot.
- Chicken Foot Soup
- Conch or Janga (crayfish) Soup
- Cow cod soup
- Fish Tea
- Gungo Peas Soup, made with pigeon peas (locally known as gungo peas)
- Mannish Water (Goat soup)
- Pepperpot Soup
- Red Peas Soup, made with kidney beans, pigstail, beef or chicken, tubers such as coco, yam, potato & sweet potato, vegetables and spices
- Pumpkin Soup, made with butternut squash, chicken, chayote (locally known as chocho), and various other vegetables depending on the region. But
Beverages
Hot beverages
Most Jamaicans begin the morning with a hot drink, either alone, with Jamaican tough water crackers, bread or along with a breakfast dish.
- Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
- Chocolate tea (Hot chocolate), traditionally made from chocolate balls
- Herbal Tea, can be made using packaged tea bags, but is almost always brewed from fresh local herbs. The commonly consumed ones include ginger, and mint. These are the most popular types of beverages served with breakfast dishes.
- Horlicks
- LASCO Food Drinks, instant powdered drinks made by adding hot or cold water, (Lasco Jamaica) with flavours such as vanilla, creamy malt, peanut punch, carrot, almond, etc.
- Milo
Juices and cold beverages
Juices often include local fruits such as pineapple, Otaheite apple, june plum (Tahitian apple), acerola cherry, mango and guava, or combine them to make medleys such as guava-carrot and fruit punch.
- Brown Streak beer - a popular beer brand in Jamaica
- Ginger beer
- Jamaican rum
- Red Stripe beer
- Roots wine
- Sorrel (drink), made from Jamaican sorrel (roselle), is enjoyed all year round but also drunk around Christmas holidays as a Christmas drink. White rum or wine is often added at Christmas.
