Jamaican Jerk in the USA This practical native meat preservation technique was rediscovered, modernized, and promoted in the United States during late 1980s by Helen Willinsky. Her culinary gauntlet aimed dead center at the spicy Cajun empire commanded by chef Paul Proudhomme. Jerk dishes soon appeared in trendy American restaurants and family chains. Jerk spices were bottled and sold in gourmet shops. It was a phenomenal success. In the 1990s one of the hottest cuisines, both in Scoville index units and in popularity, was Jamaican cooking. Extremely spicy and aromatic Jamaican jerk chicken seemed to take the country by storm, and Jamaican restaurants seemed to pop up everywhere for a while. A number of cookbooks featuring Jamaican cuisine also appeared. Although most of them have gone by the wayside, Jerk: Barbecue from Jamaica (1990) by Helen Willinsky was still in print at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Other Caribbean foods were also in favor, although few of them were as hot as the popular jerk chicken. ---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 664-5) Theres a blaze burning on American palates. It was ignited by Tex-Mex and fueled by the Cajun rage. Just when everyone thought the fervor for hot and spicy foods had burned itself out with the cooking classes, books and even premixed seasonings available to the home cook, another incendiary device continues to fan the flame. The cuisine of the Caribbean has enjoyed enormous popularity lately in cities such as New York and San Francisco. Its notoriety comes on the heels of a fascination for foods that singe. It is actually a natural progression that a splash in the Caribbean should follow a fascination for things Cajun. Each trek for foods with a bite moves farther south. Southern California, however, one of the richest gastronomic regions in the country, has been one of the last to give a nod of approval to island food as the next dining trend. The idea has been alluded to in newspaper food sections; prominent magazines have done a feature or two. But all-out support of Caribbean cuisine on the West Coast has yet to materialize-a phenomenon that publicists for island products are hard-pressed to explain. 25 Years of Independence The Caribbean islands is a group of some 7,000 islands in the Caribbean Sea stretching south from Florida to the north coast of South America. The largest and most notable ones are Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Hispaniola, which is home to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. In spite of their rich tropical beauty, the majority of these exotic havens, also known as the West Indies, have struggled in their efforts to attract wide-scale attention. But the island of Jamaica, which celebrated 25 years of independence from the British last year, has managed to remain economically stable and is a popular tourist spot, which seems to account for the interest in the food in the United States. ...But even with figures such as these and the fact that there are at least half a dozen restaurants around town offering Jamaican cuisine to tourists who want to partake of the food long after the trip back home, food aficianados apparently are reluctant to consider that Jamaican foods could satisfy the demand for spicy flavors and replace Cajun as in. Derryck Cox, Senior Trade Commissioner North America for the Jamaica Trade Commission, introduced a campaign that he hopes will bring Jamaican cuisine to the forefront of the Southern California dining scene at a press conference showcasing Caribbean products and foods. The Jamaican style of cooking, like so many other cuisines, was developed through the ingenuity of the Spaniards, Indians and Africans who created uses for items that were easily available on the island. The use of goat and pork in Jamaican cuisine is attributable to the fact that they were widely accessible. And since sea creatures are prolific in the region, dishes made with conch, shellfish, snapper and cod are very common. The inhabitants also found an assortment of uses for the multitude of exotic produce on the island. Tropical treasures such as mangoes, guavas, coconuts, pineapple, papaya, cassava, breadfruit, plantains, pumpkins and potatoes are whipped into everything from desserts and breads to drinks. The most popular Jamaican item on local menus is Jamaican jerk chicken or pork. This characteristically Jamaican dish is more than 300 years old, according to Joyce LaFray Young, author of Tropic Cooking (Ten Speed Press: $12.95), and was developed as a means of preserving meat for lengthy storage. Either meat or poultry, which has been marinated in a spicy mixture of herbs and spices, can be used. It is slowly cooked over a pimento (the Jamaican term for allspice) fire, and on the island is typically found as road food. Other Jamaican dishes include: oxtails with beans, a home-style stew made with Jamaican broad beans (lima beans are an excellent stand-in); rice and peas, a variation on Cajun red beans and rice; festival, a fried cornmeal cake similar to hush puppies; soursop, a drink reminiscent of eggnog made from the fleshy fruit of the same name and mixed with milk and spiked with nutmeg; fried plantains, a fruit of the banana family eaten when very ripe; curry goat; fruit custards, and bread pudding...there is a strong reluctance in this part of the country to support this type of food, even though it is similar to the earthy, comfort food that made Cajun a household word. He explained that Los Angeles trails cities such as New York, San Francisco and Miami, which have large West Indian populations and support Jamaican foods and products fervently. Within the last nine months, Cox said, six Caribbean restaurants have opened in Atlanta. The biggest selling item on their menus is Jamaican seasoned chicken-jerk, Cox said. People are looking for something new. ...Since then, a multitude of restaurants featuring the cuisine have opened in New York, and some Los Angeles markets have begun stocking familiar Jamaican food products in their ethnic food sections. (Last month, a notable New York restaurant, the Sugar Reef, began a program that invites Caribbean guest chefs to prepare specialties of the various islands for diners.)...Its not the natives (Jamaican nationals) were interested in, Cox said. The aim is to redevelop and repackage Jamaican products to be much more attractive to mainstream audiences. ---Islands Fare Southland Interest in Caribbean Cuisine Continues to Grow, Toni Tipton, Los Angeles Times, Jan 14, 1988, pg. 37 ?
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:45:42 +0000
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