Jerk chicken: Caribbean roots and adoration around the world
A long way from islands, variations on spicy dish served up by restaurants, food trucks throughout region
"I've never met anyone who had real jerk chicken for the first time and didn't like it," said Kevon Watson, co-owner of Natty's Caribbean Cuisine in Albany. "Black, white, any other ethnicity — everyone likes it."
Aside from reggae music, jerk chicken is Jamaica's most famous cultural export. It can be found throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, western Europe and beyond, and not just in Caribbean restaurants. The popularity is such that a jerk-flavored sauce is commonly among those offered for chicken wings at pubs, sports bars and family restaurants.
But its origin is wholly Jamaican. And while in the American media and popular imagination "Black" food may first evoke thoughts of the Southern soul tradition — fried chicken, mac-n-cheese, collards, grits — for a segment of the Capital Region’s Black population, the food essential to their heritage is a richly flavored, deep, smoky, spicy concoction that dates back more than 350 years.
Albany alone has about 10 Caribbean restaurants, all serving jerk chicken, and more can be found in Hudson, Schenectady
and Troy. Two of the mainstays, Kenneth’s Tastebud Caribbean American Restaurant and Roy’s Caribbean Restaurant, sit across the street from one another on Henry Johnson Boulevard in Albany and have been open for 40 years and 30 years, respectively.
"There are so many layers of 'Black' culture: Black Americans, Jamaicans, Haitians, Africans, Afro-latinos, French, and everybody has their own food," said Shaun Freeman, co-owner of Irie Vybez, a Jamaican restaurant in Albany that will celebrate its seventh anniversary in April. "But jerk chicken is the best known."
Freeman said his customer base is 70 percent Black and about 20 percent white, with
the remainder a broad mix of other ethnicities.
Jerk chicken has been on the menu at Irie Vybez since it opened, representing about 25 percent of orders. (The restaurant's most popular dish is braised oxtail, selling at a rate of 500 pounds a week, Freeman said.) Traditionally, jerk chicken is marinated with a paste or rub based heavily on fiery Scotch bonnet peppers and allspice, the berry of the pimento tree.
Freeman, who grew up in a Jamaican community in the Bronx, said he doesn't use
allspice and is cagey about his jerk recipe, allowing that it includes Scotch bonnets, thyme, scallions and ginger. After an overnight cure in the jerk seasoning, the chicken is grilled over charcoal.
Roadside jerk stands ubiquitous in Jamaica feature outdoor grills, in the past often made from oil barrels, that burn pimento wood and leaves over coals, but Freeman said sourcing them would be logistically difficult and expensive. (Maurice Reid, chef-owner of D&M Jerk Center in Albany, said he tosses pimento leaves and allspice berries into the fire when cooking on an outdoor grill for festivals and catering events but uses a gas grill at the restaurant.)
"You have to cook it low and slow," said Watson of his approach to jerk chicken at Natty's, where the dish accounts for about a third of all orders. After a two- or three-day marinade, chicken parts are grilled. All jerk chicken must have bones, aficionados insist. A sign in D&M Jerk center warns, "No boneless meat!"
"A boneless chicken breast with jerk sauce on a sandwich isn't jerk chicken,” said Watson. “That’s definitely not authentic.”
Though now trendy, jerk as a recipe was born out of privation and necessity. According to the book “Provisions: The Roots of Caribbean Cooking,” jerk was first developed by Caribbean indigenous people called the Tainos, with later influence by the Maroons, a tribe of enslaved Africans who escaped from Spanish-owned plantations when Jamaica was invaded by the British in 1655.
Finding refuge in a mountainous region on the eastern side of the island, the Maroons are believed by historians to have learned jerk seasoning and cooking with available ingredients including feral pigs, allspice, chile peppers and pimento wood from the Tainos, and the Maroons began the practice of burying whole hogs in fire pits to smoke.
“Like oxtail, which was originally food for poor people, jerk was using what they had around them,” said Freeman.
“They’d smoke the meat to preserve it, so it wouldn’t spoil,” said Watson.
As jerk has become more popular, concessions have been made to wider tastes, including moderating spice levels.
(Scotch bonnets in abundance will torch most tongues.)
“I’d say ours is a 4 out of 10 in terms of spiciness,” said Freeman.
“We purposely did that, because a lot of people come in and say, ‘I don’t like it too spicy,’” Freeman said. Those with capsaicin-craving palates can crank up the heat with housemade bottled sauce that’s available for purchase.
“We’re probably 7 for spicy,” said Watson of Natty’s, which he opened with a partner in 2019 after 20 years in the restaurant business locally following a move from his native in Jamaica in 2000. But, he said, “We can do it at a 10, too. If you like that, we’ll give it to you.”
There are so many layers of 'Black' culture: Black Americans, Jamaicans, Haitians, Africans, Afro-latinos, French, and everybody has their own food, but jerk chicken is the best known."
— Shaun Freeman, co-owner of Irie Vybez