The wonderful story of immigration to the UK is also the story of food. One of The Coracle’s favourites is jerk chicken. When you drive from the Jamaican airport to the capital of Kingston you can see and smell the roadside alight with oil drum barbecues cooking jerked meat over the sweet scent of pimento wood. From the 1950s there was a slow increase in people from the Caribbean islands coming to live in the UK but Caribbean food took a while to appear as imported ingredients were expensive and demand was low. By the 1960s, small eating houses appeared like the fantastic Globe in London’s Notting Hill where you can dance off your food in the basement ska palace. In Riaz Phillips book ‘Jerk’ he says these simple restaurants were; ‘a public space free from persecution, a place to see familiar faces who were going through the same distresses, a place to ask “Wagwan!”, to not have to feign an English accent’.
Despite the best efforts of Levi Roots, Caribbean food has had a much slower development than Indian, Chinese or Thai foods in the UK. Riaz says this might be because there is an ‘arguable lack of business unification with an unwillingness to compromise in taste and texture’. There are definitely plus sides to this intransigence, for starters there are no sweet and sour chicken balls round here. Caribbean food outlets have even stayed largely in the areas that are traditionally known for those communities. You won’t find much jerk in Musselburgh or Machynlleth.
The jerk in question is the spicing, the predominant one being the sweet, spicy, floral flavour of dried allspice berries. These berries were so named because British immigrants to the Caribbean thought they tasted of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. This treatment of meat was possibly invented by indigenous Taíno Indians who presumably were immigrants themselves once or possibly it was the genius of escaped slaves called Maroons. The Caribbean island chain is 1000 miles long and there are flippin loads of other treats on offer: bammy, run down, callaloo, coco, toto, hard food. We are here for the jerk though.
One of The Coracle’s favourite renditions is served up at People’s Choice, in the Clapton area of East London, by Lenny and Lorraine who moved from Kingston in 1999. There’s just the right amount of sweet spice and the skin is crisp and golden revealing the sexy moist chicken thigh and leg within. Also key is the pimento wood and Lenny’s closing of the barbecue lid to allow just the right amount of smokey goodness to envelope the meat. He makes it the same way he made it when he lived in Jamaica, this isn’t your average chicken shop, it’s good for your soul and slow-cooked chicken tastes so much better than the bland white breast meat of a British roast.
Eat with plantain, hard dough bread or some festival. Lorraine also recommends curried goat and if you can find it The Coracle has a soft spot for jerked pork, preferably while listening to Bedasse & Chin’s rendition of Night Food .
I’d really recommend Riaz’s wonderful book which you can buy here .
Mandatory viewing are Steve McQueen’s series of films for the BBC: Small Axe, ‘Love letters to black resilience in London’s West Indian community’.
The wonderful story of immigration to the UK is also the story of food. One of The Coracle’s favourites is jerk chicken. When you drive from the Jamaican airport to the capital of Kingston you can see and smell the roadside alight with oil drum barbecues cooking jerked meat over the sweet scent of pimento wood. From the 1950s there was a slow increase in people from the Caribbean islands coming to live in the UK but Caribbean food took a while to appear as imported ingredients were expensive and demand was low. By the 1960s, small eating houses appeared like the fantastic Globe in London’s Notting Hill where you can dance off your food in the basement ska palace. In Riaz Phillips book ‘Jerk’ he says these simple restaurants were; ‘a public space free from persecution, a place to see familiar faces who were going through the same distresses, a place to ask “Wagwan!”, to not have to feign an English accent’.
Despite the best efforts of Levi Roots, Caribbean food has had a much slower development than Indian, Chinese or Thai foods in the UK. Riaz says this might be because there is an ‘arguable lack of business unification with an unwillingness to compromise in taste and texture’. There are definitely plus sides to this intransigence, for starters there are no sweet and sour chicken balls round here. Caribbean food outlets have even stayed largely in the areas that are traditionally known for those communities. You won’t find much jerk in Musselburgh or Machynlleth.
The jerk in question is the spicing, the predominant one being the sweet, spicy, floral flavour of dried allspice berries. These berries were so named because British immigrants to the Caribbean thought they tasted of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. This treatment of meat was possibly invented by indigenous Taíno Indians who presumably were immigrants themselves once or possibly it was the genius of escaped slaves called Maroons. The Caribbean island chain is 1000 miles long and there are flippin loads of other treats on offer: bammy, run down, callaloo, coco, toto, hard food. We are here for the jerk though.
One of The Coracle’s favourite renditions is served up at People’s Choice, in the Clapton area of East London, by Lenny and Lorraine who moved from Kingston in 1999. There’s just the right amount of sweet spice and the skin is crisp and golden revealing the sexy moist chicken thigh and leg within. Also key is the pimento wood and Lenny’s closing of the barbecue lid to allow just the right amount of smokey goodness to envelope the meat. He makes it the same way he made it when he lived in Jamaica, this isn’t your average chicken shop, it’s good for your soul and slow-cooked chicken tastes so much better than the bland white breast meat of a British roast.
Eat with plantain, hard dough bread or some festival. Lorraine also recommends curried goat and if you can find it The Coracle has a soft spot for jerked pork, preferably while listening to Bedasse & Chin’s rendition of Night Food
I’d really recommend Riaz’s book which you can buy here here
Mandatory viewing are Steve McQueen’s series of films for the BBC: Small Axe, ‘Love letters to black resilience in London’s West Indian community’.
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