Chicken steeped in a hot, fragrant paste of scotch bonnet, allspice, spring onion and thyme, then smoked slowly over pimento wood.
What makes it jerk chicken
Scotch bonnet and allspice — the pimento berry — in the marinade.
Marinated for hours, ideally overnight.
Cooked slowly with smoke, over pimento wood or charcoal.
Where it comes from
Jerk is widely traced to the Maroons, who hunted wild hog in the mountains and cooked it slowly in covered pits, seasoned to keep — combining Taíno smoking over green wood with African spice. Pork was the first jerk; chicken is now the most common.
Boston Bay in Portland is often called its birthplace, and its roadside pits are still famous. In towns it's cooked on grills made from oil drums cut in half, and sold by the pound with hard-dough bread and festival.