Jerk

Jerk is a method before it is a flavour: meat is rubbed or marinated with scotch bonnet, allspice berries, thyme, scallion and pimento, then cooked slowly over a fire of green pimento wood, traditionally in a pit covered with branches, so it smokes as much as it grills. The technique is credited to the Maroons, who needed to cook and preserve wild pig in the mountains without giving away their position with smoke and flame, and the word probably comes through Spanish from a Quechua term for dried meat. Boston Bay in Portland is where the roadside jerk trade started in the 1930s and remains the reference point. Pork and chicken are standard; the drum pan is the modern pit.

What you actually see

• Pimento wood - the green allspice wood the fire is built from.
• Boston Bay - the row of jerk pits where the roadside trade began.
• The drum pan - a split oil drum, the modern version of the pit.
• Festival and hard dough bread - what it is properly eaten with.

When to go

Year-round. Jerk is an afternoon and evening food and the pits fire up from midday. The Portland Jerk Festival in July brings the pitmasters together. Roadside pans across the island run into the night.

Honest expectations

Scotch bonnet is genuinely hot and the sauce served alongside is hotter still; taste before pouring. Quality varies enormously and a lot of what is sold as jerk is grilled meat with sauce brushed on rather than smoked over pimento. The famous Boston Bay pits are now a competitive strip with touts pulling visitors in. Vegetarian jerk exists but is uncommon.

Nearby

Long Bay and Reach Falls are nearby; Port Antonio is 45 minutes west.