Ocho Rios, Jamaica City Guide
For over 20 years, Pamela Lanier's Ocho Rios, Jamaica Travel Guide has been your connection to Ocho Rios's tourism community with invaluable details on local attractions, restaurants, shopping, museums, history, outdoor recreation and more.
|
Dining in Ocho Rios
 A Jamaican meal is usually a relaxing, social time. The dishes of food are set on the table at once, and everyone takes whatever they like. Table manners are considered less important than enjoying the food and the company. In rural areas families usually eat dinner together each day after 4 p.m., while families in urban areas might not have a chance to eat together except on weekends. A prayer is often said before and after meals. Eating outdoors to enjoy the warm weather is popular, especially in gardens and on patios. Jamaicans usually eat three meals a day with snacks in between. Breakfast and dinner are considered the most important meals.Jamaicans eat foods that are flavored with spices such as ginger, nutmeg, and allspice (pimento). Allspice, the dried berries of the pimento plant, is native to Jamaica and an important export crop. (This is different from pimiento, the red pepper used to stuff green olives.) Many meals are accompanied by bammy, which is a toasted bread-like wafer made from cassava (or yucca, pronounced YOO-kah). With the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea surrounding the island, seafood is plentiful in the Jamaican diet. Lobster, shrimp, and fish such as red snapper, tuna, mackerel, and jackfish are in abundance. Fruits grow extremely well in Jamaica's tropical climate. Mangoes, pineapple, papaya, bananas, guava, coconuts, ackee, and plantains are just a few of the fruits eaten fresh or used in desserts. Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica. It is a bright red tropical fruit that bursts open when ripe, and reveals a soft, mild, creamy yellowish flesh. If the fruit is forced open before ripe, it gives out a toxic gas poisonous enough to kill. Plantains look like bananas, may be up to a foot long, and have the consistency of potatoes when unripe. Unlike bananas, when the skin turns black, some people think they taste the best. The national dish of Jamaica is ackee and saltfish. Saltfish is dried, salted fish, usually cod, which must be soaked in water before cooking. The ackee fruit is fried with onions, sweet and hot peppers, fresh tomatoes, and boiled saltfish. It is popular to eat for breakfast or as a snack. Other staples include brown-stewed fish or beef (Jamaicans are fond of gravy), curried goat, and pepperpot soup, made from callaloo (greens), okra, and beef or pork. When you're in Jamaica, you shouldn't miss the mouthwatering Jamaican jerk pork and chicken. It's not haute cuisine, but you'll crave these delicious traditional meats for years to come. "Jerking" is a native Jamaican method of spicing and slowly cooking meat to preserve the juices and produce a unique, spicy flavor. First, a seasoning that usually contains hot peppers, onions, garlic, thyme, allspice, ginger, and cinnamon is rubbed all over the meat. The jerked meat is then cooked over an outdoor pit lined with wood, usually from the pimento. A popular breakfast dish is the national one: ackee and saltfish. Undoubtedly at some point in your stay, your innkeeper will offer you this island favorite at your bed and breakfast. While it looks similar to scrambled eggs, the taste is quite different. It is usually served with callaloo, boiled green bananas, a piece of hard-dough bread (a slightly sweet-tasting white loaf) or a sweet bread called Johnnycake. Other popular morning dishes include cornmeal, plantain or peanut porridge, steamed fish, or rundown made with smoked mackerel. Rundown is flaked fish boiled with coconut milk, onion, and seasoning. It is customary for all Jamaican hot drinks to be called "tea." Jamaican coffee is popular. One particular Jamaican brand is among the best and most expensive in the world and is one of the country's main exports. Hot chocolate is usually drunk with breakfast, but is more complicated to prepare than the Western version. It is made from balls of locally grown cocoa spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg and boiled with water and condensed milk. Native rum and beer are popular, but there are a variety of non-alcoholic drinks as well. Refreshing fruit juices are also available, ask your innkeeper about the origin of the fruit and try a new one each morning at your bed and breakfast. Make sure to try what is called a jelly, often found at roadside stands. The vendor opens a coconut with a machete (a large, heavy knife) and the milk is drunk straight from the nut. The vendor will then split the shell and offer a piece of it so you can eat the soft coconut meat inside. Sky juice (cones of shaved ice flavored with fruit syrup) is also popular along with Ting, a sparkling grapefruit juice drink.
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 1993 - 2009 Lanier Publishing International