Meaning
Tinned corned beef — a cheap, shelf-stable pantry staple found in kitchens across Jamaica. Most often fried up with onion, tomato, and scotch bonnet and eaten with rice, bread, boiled banana, or crackers, bully beef is a go-to quick meal, especially when money is short or there is no time to cook. Alongside tin mackerel and sardines, it is one of the trusted store-cupboard tins that have fed families for generations, filling, handy, and always ready to stretch into a hot dinner.
Examples
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Mumma fry up some bully beef wid onion fi dinner.
Mum fried up some corned beef with onion for dinner.
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Bully beef an crackaz keep yuh till evening.
Corned beef and crackers will hold you till evening.
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Everybody keep a tin a bully beef inna di cupboard.
Everyone keeps a tin of corned beef in the cupboard.
Origin
'Bully beef' is an old term for tinned corned beef (from French 'bouilli', boiled) that entered Caribbean English through the British; a fixture of Jamaican cooking.
How it’s used
A staple tinned food; 'bully beef and rice' is classic everyday fare.