A few weeks ago, I got home from my post office in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and found myself promoting my neighborhood fast food halal chain, Halal Brothers Grill, and its latest menu items. Living in the Little Caribbean area of Brooklyn, I have eaten hundreds of jerk-flavored pate from the tasty patties, Guyana’s jerk pork corn maine from the Domboob Express, and cumulative pounds of burnt allspice-scented chicken from the fisherman’s entrance and peppa. I smoked a lung of smoke while waiting to order from a sidewalk vendor who installed barrel grills at my corner for several months each summer.
But last year or so, I’ve seen it see it permeate from grilling techniques to infiltrate meat with smoke, allspice and scotch bonnet pepper to fluid descriptors that apply to dump, lamb cocktails, ice cream and even faster food quesadillas.
Last year or so, I meandered along the lines. Jerk pizzaStanding in a line of Cocopan sold out jerk chicken salad sandwiches from Baker’s pop-up Brian Fordand I saw it Viral Video We supported rapper Ruby Rose’s Bodega Jerk Cheese Cheese. It all made me wonder: what can’t be done? And how did this particular set of flavors turn into such a general cultural shorthand for Caribbean cuisine?
In her 2025 cookbook relativesLondon-based author and chef Marie Mitchell includes recipes for jerk friction, marinade and sauce. She uses these staples to season pork belly cubes, wings, lamb burgers, italian coconut stew and canned jackfruit. Her book notes that Mitchell, whose parents are Jamaican natives, confuses Jamaican food with Caribbean food simply because Jamaica is the largest British colony in the region.
“Although I’m specifically Jamaican, Jerk is an incredible example of the complexity and ingenuity of Caribbean cuisine, and an incredible example of the way food expresses people so richly.”
In the 17th century, when the British kept Jamaica away from Spanish settlers, many enslaved people fled to the mountains of Jamaica and founded a free community of maroons. The Maroon adapted some of the cooking techniques that kept the Indigenous peoples The people of Taino are safe from the violence of the Spanish people. This included underground smoking meat (such as wild boars) in pimente wood smoke so that settlers could not detect fire. Today, the flavor of pimento is often introduced by pimento berries (also known as allspice) in marinated meat.
A Brooklyn chef recently opened as London Chase Mango BayPlease note, jerk salt and smoke is also a resourceful way to extend the shelf life of ingredients throughout history. “We actually used it that day just to ferment certain types of food and store it,” he says.
“It doesn’t feel like there’s time for Caribbean food to really be embedded and penetrated.”
Growing up in Guiana, France, Chase remembers using jerk sauce to ferment fruits and vegetables, turning grated mangoes into spicy acha that helped the government cut off the electric grid without warning. “We need to know how to store food when the lights go off,” he says. At Mango Bay, Chase serves jerk chicken Caesar salad, grilled octopus with jerk gremorata and jerk aioli burgers. See the photo above for Chase’s octopus with jerk seasonings.
With Jerk Daikiri (White Rum, Thyme, Allspice, Habanero) and Manhattan chef Paul Carmichael’s newly opened Caribbean restaurant, Bar Kabawa, I asked Mitchell what I think Jerk is becoming a very popular fuss due to its cultural mashup and viral menu.
“I hate the idea that it needs to be done in this cultural movement, but for me, It doesn’t feel like there’s time for Caribbean food to really be embedded and penetratedShe says.
Her cookbook relatives include author and chef Marie Mitchell, who has jerk rubs, marinades and sauce recipes, and uses rubs on naughty pork bites recipes. Photo: Christian Cassielle
For Mitchell, Jerk’s meteors have grown fame outside the Caribbean. It’s a double-edged sword. It is a gateway to learning about the diverse food history of the Caribbean, and sometimes overexplaining its history. “It’s not that you don’t want to be what’s praised and spoken,” she says. “But when it’s removed from the context, regardless of it, I think it’s going to be something else.” Of course, whenever a particular dish picks up viral momentum, some contexts can get lost halfway through.
“It’s definitely more commercialized,” says recent entrepreneur Shanis Black of Jerk. Founded by Black and her mother Tie the LinThe Brooklyn-based company started selling bottled jerk sauces and marinades last year. Black says he’s seen many jerk missteps over the years, such as when someone labels menu items as “jerks” while missing out on the complex layers of allspice and scotch bonnet and the cultural nuances that enter the cuisine. She also came across many assumptions about what jerks can and cannot.
“The biggest misconception is that it can only be used with chicken, and I think it’s a diverse flavor profile that can actually be used with everything, including vegetables and seafood,” she says. “Many people just actually see it in this one-dimensional view.” Black was shocked at how much he liked the jerk sauce in the ice cream.
The wide availability of packaged jerk sauce and friction (from newer brands like longtime grocery brands like Grace) makes the flavor profile an attractive muse of rogue experimentation. Make these bottled sauces Jerkram Raisins Sunday and Ockyway chopped cheese with croissant Possible.
“Jerk is synonymous with the Caribbean,” says Shelley Worrell. Partly because it’s an “accessible melange like a taste.” Growing up between Brooklyn and the Caribbean, Worrell is the founder of Caribbean Bing, a local Brooklyn cultural organization that amplifies Caribbean art, food and business.
In March this year, New York chef and author JJ Johnson held a massive “Jam Jam” at the Nassau Paradise Island Wine and Food Festival in the Bahamas. Hundreds of international tourists and Bahamians gathered in the sand, and smokers, grills and prep tables handed out bite-sized jerk creations. Johnson cooked a crispy skinned jerk snapper with corn papaya salad and rice, and his co-host, chef and TV host Kardea Brown, made Rasta Pasta: Gitty with peppers, chicken pieces and jerk-flavored Alfredo sauce.
“Jerk is the gateway to the Caribbean,” says Johnson. “Most people think it’s from Jamaican, but it’s a celebration of Caribbean culture. It’s Caribbean barbecue sauce.”
Nassau chef Antonio Williams explains that jerk is just as crucial to Bahamian food as Jamaican food. “We equate jerk with grills and barbecues,” he says. For jam jam he made jerk chicken duff (a steamed sweet Bahamas cake usually topped with guava sauce) and jerk chicken corndogs with long, winding lines in his tent. Williams first sucks, shreds, fry, freezes in a bowl, and soaks and deepens the jerk chicken to achieve a crispy, fried shell without drying. He served corn dogs with spicy mustard and ketchup made with mangoes throughout the season.
The festival features Jerk pigtails from Vell Monkey Foot, Jerk chicken gyros with tropical gyros, Jerk gooper Siu Mai on poop deck, Spring rolls of jerk shrimp in kitchen culture, all local restaurants and Nassau catering business. The only jerk I declined over the weekend was the jerk chicken sandwich from Quiznos at Nassau Airport, which promoted toppings such as mozzarella cheese, lettuce, mayonnaise and barbecue sauce.
In the era of Chaotic cuisine And it may be fascinating to think freely about jerk, wiped out by the viability of the internet, all this spirit of innovation. In Mango Bay, Chase has his own threshold of how much creative freedom a creative Liberty is.
“If your grandparents come in as Caribbean people and eat your food and say, ‘This tastes like my mother’s dish,’ then you shouldn’t mess with it. ”
