*the image above is curried goat with rice and peas.

Before we even prepared to leave for Jamaica, Dr. Key told us that there would be a chef to make us traditional Jamaican dishes every day. Traditional Jamaican food is a hybrid combination of the many cultures on the island. Some of the traditional cultural foods are ackee, jerk chicken, oxtail, and rice and peas. With my small tastes of Jamaica at home, I was naturally initially excited. Homemade, fresh Jamaican food? Yes! But, it was not as exciting or extravagant as I was expecting. The first night we had typical Jamaican food and by typical I mean it is well heard of in the US. Prepared for us was jerk chicken and pork, rice and peas, festival, and a host of other dishes. As expected, I loved every bite of everything I had but things changed the next morning. That Saturday morning we had an infamous Jamaican beef patty which I didn’t particularly care for. On Sunday the chef wanted to warm us up to the cultural cuisine by gradually introducing us to common, native food such as festival, saltfish fritters, watermelon, eggs, and apples. This was nice, I devoured it all. The following morning we were greeted by another popular dish — ackee and saltfish — accompanied by rolls, a spinach like food, papaya, and, of course, festival. Sadly, I didn’t like any of the foods except the festival and fruit. Over the course of the week the chef incorporated more and moe native dishes until everything we ate was primitive to the island.

Although I didn’t like most of the dishes prepared, I tried a little bit of everything. Not only was the food grown in Jamaica, it was also made fresh – even from restaurants. That alone was different than something I’ve had before. In the US, a lot of food is imported, processed, steroid induced, or some other type of transformation is done but, in Jamaica, everything was natural, “homegrown.” I loved that. I was exposed to so many unique flavors and foods that it was an experience in itself. Trying new things is not my forte, however, I am very glad I tried everything Jamaica had to offer.

*this is a Jamaican beef patty

this is watermelon, an apple, eggs, festival, salt fish fritters, and a roll.

this above is a feast of traditional Jamaican cuisine we enjoyed our first night here.

https://dune.une.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1005&context=an_studedres