Jerk (cooking)

Lore & Background

According to historical evidence, jerked meat was first cooked by the indigenous Taínos. In the 1530s, Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés documented how they prepared and preserved meats and fish on a barbacoa, using native hot peppers (Scotch bonnet and cayenne pepper) and pimento for seasoning. Sometimes, meats were wrapped in papaya leaves to tenderize them before jerking. Historically, local game such as coney (hutia), iguana, wild hog (feral domestic pig), agouti, wild birds, waterfowl, and turtle were jerked, along with seafood including parrotfish, grouper, snapper, shark, lobster, and conch.

During the invasion of Jamaica in 1655, Spanish colonists freed enslaved Africans who fled into the Jamaican countryside, becoming some of the first Jamaican Maroons. They intermingled with the remaining Taínos, learning and adapting aspects of their culture including the practice of jerking. The Maroons largely continued the practice of hunting wild hogs and jerking pork, and Jamaican jerk sauce is believed to have been primarily developed by them, adding flavour to wild hogs seasoned with herbs and allspice before slow-cooking over pimento wood.

Reader's Guide

Jerk cooking and seasoning have followed the Caribbean diaspora all over the world, and forms of jerk can now be found at restaurants almost anywhere a significant population of Caribbean descent exists, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, coastal Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and San Andrés. Jamaican jerk has developed a global following, most notably in American, Canadian, and Western European cosmopolitan urban centres. The cooking technique has evolved from pit fires to grilling over coals in old metal barrel halves, which became widely used across the island around the 1960s. Street-side 'jerk stands' or 'jerk centres' are commonly found in Jamaica and the nearby Cayman Islands. Due to the growing international popularity, the Jamaican government trademarked 'Jamaica Jerk' as a geographical indication in September 2015, making Jamaica the first country in the English-speaking Caribbean to register a GI, aimed at protecting the quality and reputation of Jamaican jerk from misrepresentation and imitation.

Did You Know?

• The word 'jerk' is said to come from 'charqui', a Spanish term of Quechua origin for jerked or dried meat, which became 'jerky' in English.
• The method of cooking in underground pits is speculated by some to have been used to avoid creating smoke which would have revealed the location of Maroons.
• Poulet boucané (smoked chicken), a dish found in French Caribbean countries such as Martinique and Guadeloupe, is quite similar to traditional Jamaican jerk chicken.
• Jerk seasoning was originally used on chicken and pork, but has now been expanded to include fish, shrimp, lobster, conch, shellfish, beef, sausage, lamb, goat, tofu, and vegetables.