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Food & Drink
260 entries in this part of the language, each with meanings, pronunciation and worked examples.
- Ackee A soft, pale-yellow fruit whose ripe arils are cooked as a savoury vegetable;
- Ackee and saltfish Jamaica's national dish — boiled ackee (the yellow arils of the ripe ackee fruit) sautéed…
- Annatto The rusty-red seed of the annatto shrub, used to colour and lightly flavour food — its…
- Appleton The famous brand of aged, golden Jamaican rum from the Appleton Estate in St Elizabeth's…
- Arrowroot A starchy root ground into a fine, easily-digested powder used to thicken porridges…
- Asham A traditional Jamaican snack of dried corn that has been parched (roasted), then ground…
- Bag juice A cheap sweet drink sold frozen in a small plastic bag — you bite off a corner and suck out…
- Bammy A flat, round flatbread made from grated cassava that is pressed, dried and fried or…
- Banana Banana — but in Jamaican kitchens the word often means the GREEN (unripe) banana boiled as…
- Banana fritter A sweet fried cake made from mashed overripe banana beaten into a spiced flour batter with…
- Banana porridge A breakfast porridge made from banana — most often the green (unripe) banana grated into a…
- Bang belly A tight, swollen, drum-like belly — used of a distended stomach, as on a child who has…
- Belly full The satisfied fullness of a good meal — having eaten your fill — and, more broadly, the…
- Bickle Food, victuals — cooked food to eat, provisions for a meal.
- Bikkle Food, provisions, a meal — what there is to eat.
- Bissy The kola nut, grated and steeped in water as a traditional folk remedy.
- Bizzy The bitter kola nut — a hard reddish seed that is grated or chewed as a folk remedy and…
- Blue drawers A sweet boiled pudding of grated sweet potato or cornmeal with coconut, sugar, and spice…
- Blue drawz A sweet Jamaican dessert of grated sweet potato or cornmeal blended with coconut, sugar…
- Boil dumpling A dumpling cooked by boiling rather than frying — a dense round or flattened patty of flour…
- Boiled dumpling A dense round or flattened dumpling of flour and water dropped into boiling water or soup —…
- Box food A takeaway meal packed in a foam or cardboard box — typically rice with a stew or fried…
- Box lunch A hot meal packed in a foam or cardboard box — bought from a cook-shop or vendor, or…
- Breadfruit A large, round, green starchy fruit — brought to Jamaica in the 18th century — that is…
- Breadkind The starchy, filling part of a meal taken collectively — ground provisions (yam, dasheen…
- Brown down To brown meat in hot oil, or in burnt/caramelised sugar, to build colour and deep flavour…
- Brown stew A classic Jamaican cooking method and dish in which meat or fish is browned and simmered in…
- Browning Burnt-sugar colouring — a dark, bittersweet caramel used to give brown stew, gravies, and…
- Buju An affectionate word for breadfruit, and a nickname for a chubby child (soft and round like…
- Bulla A round, dense, flat cake sweetened with molasses or dark brown sugar and spiced with…
- Bully beef Tinned corned beef — a cheap, shelf-stable pantry staple found in kitchens across Jamaica.
- Bun an cheese The pairing of Jamaican Easter bun, a dark, spiced fruit loaf, with slices of firm…
- Bun and cheese The classic pairing of spiced bun with a thick slab of processed cheese — a treasured…
- Bush tea Herbal tea brewed from wild 'bush' — the leaves, roots, and barks of medicinal plants — and…
- Busta A hard, chewy sweet made of coconut and boiled sugar (dark from burnt sugar or spiced with…
- Bustamante backbone A very hard, chewy candy made from coconut and dark sugar or molasses, cooked until it sets…
- Callaloo A leafy green vegetable (in Jamaica usually amaranth, sometimes taro leaf elsewhere) cooked…
- Callaloo and saltfish Callaloo — the chopped leafy green (in Jamaica, the leaves of amaranth or of the…
- Cane juice The sweet juice pressed from crushed sugar cane, drunk fresh — often with a squeeze of lime…
- Carrot juice A sweet, creamy drink of blended and strained fresh carrot mixed with condensed milk…
- Cassava A starchy root crop — one of the island's oldest foods — ground and pressed to make bammy…
- Cassava cake A dense, sweet baked cake — 'cassava pone' — made from grated cassava mixed with coconut…
- Cerasee A wild, sprawling bitter vine whose leaves are boiled into a famously bitter tea, a…
- Chaklata Chocolate — and especially 'chocolate tea', the hot drink made by boiling grated homemade…
- Cheese Cheese — especially the bright-yellow processed cheese sold in a tin (New Zealand 'tin…
- Chicken The chicken — a dietary and economic staple (jerk chicken, brown stew chicken, fried…
- Chicken foot soup A hearty soup made with chicken feet — the cleaned, scaly feet simmered until they give up…
- Cho-cho The chayote — a pale green, wrinkled, pear-shaped squash with a mild, faintly sweet taste…
- Chocho The chayote — a pale-green, pear-shaped squash with a mild taste, a staple of the Jamaican…
- Chocolate tea Hot cocoa made the traditional Jamaican way — grated or grated-and-boiled from a hard ball…
- Coco A starchy root vegetable — a 'ground provision' related to taro and dasheen — boiled in…
- Coco bread A soft, slightly sweet folded bread made with coconut milk, traditionally split and wrapped…
- Cocoa The cacao from which real Jamaican 'chocolate tea' is made — the beans are roasted, ground…
- Coconut The coconut — central to Jamaican life and cooking.
- Coconut drops A chewy old-time sweet made by boiling diced 'dry' coconut with sugar and ginger until the…
- Coconut milk The rich, creamy liquid squeezed from grated coconut flesh — the backbone of Jamaican…
- Coconut water The clear, sweet liquid inside a green coconut — drunk straight from the shell as the…
- Condense milk Sweetened condensed milk — the thick, very sweet tinned milk that is a fixture of the…
- Cook down To simmer food slowly in coconut milk or a seasoned liquid until it thickens and the…
- Cook up To prepare a meal — especially a hearty, generous, or improvised one thrown together from…
- Cook-shop A small, no-frills eatery serving hot cooked Jamaican food — the local spot where you buy a…
- Cornmeal Ground corn (maize) meal — a versatile staple used for creamy cornmeal porridge (a…
- Cornmeal porridge A thick, smooth breakfast porridge made from cornmeal cooked slowly with water and coconut…
- Cornmeal pudding A rich baked pudding made from cornmeal, coconut milk, sugar, and spices, often finished…
- Cow cod soup A rich soup made from the bull's genitals ('cod' = the male organ/testicles), boiled long…
- Cow foot A rich, gelatinous stew made from the foot (trotter) of the cow, slow-cooked with butter…
- Cow-cod A bull's penis, used as food — most famously boiled into 'cow-cod soup', a spiced broth…
- Crackers Hard water crackers — the plain, dry, round biscuit that is a Jamaican pantry staple.
- Curry Curry — both the golden, spiced dish (curry goat and curry chicken are Sunday and…
- Curry chicken Chicken cooked in Jamaican curry — seasoned and simmered with plenty of curry powder…
- Curry goat Goat meat slow-cooked in a rich curry of Jamaican curry powder, onion, garlic, thyme, and…
- Custard A sweet, creamy pudding made by cooking milk (often condensed milk), sugar, and cornstarch…
- Cut cake A chewy coconut sweet made by boiling grated coconut with sugar (often browned) and ginger…
- Dasheen A large root of the taro family, with dark-flecked, dense, greyish flesh — one of the…
- Dragon Stout A popular sweet, dark Jamaican stout — richer and sweeter than Guinness — brewed by Desnoes…
- Draw soup To make or cook up a pot of soup — literally to 'draw' the soup, to prepare it.
- Drops Coconut drops — a hard, chewy old-time sweet made by boiling chunks of fresh coconut with…
- Duckunoo A sweet steamed pudding of grated sweet potato or cornmeal mixed with coconut, sugar, and…
- Dukunu A sweet steamed pudding of grated cornmeal or sweet potato with coconut, sugar, and warm…
- Dumplin A dense ball or flattened disc of fried or boiled flour dough eaten as a starch alongside a…
- Dumpling A ball or flat round of flour dough, boiled or fried, that goes with soups, stews, and…
- Dutch pot A heavy, round cast-aluminium or cast-iron cooking pot with a close-fitting lid — the…
- Dutchie A Dutch pot — the heavy, round, cast-aluminium (or cast-iron) cooking pot found in nearly…
- Easter bun The dark, spiced, fruit-studded bun eaten at Easter — a rich loaf flavoured with browning…
- Egg punch A rich drink made by beating a raw egg into milk (often condensed milk) with sugar…
- Escallion The Jamaican word for scallion (spring onion) — a cornerstone seasoning of the cuisine.
- Escoveitch fish Fried whole fish topped and steeped in a tangy, spicy pickle of vinegar cooked with sliced…
- Escovitch Fried fish dressed with a tangy, spiced vinegar sauce loaded with sliced onion, carrot…
- Escovitch fish Fried whole fish topped with a tangy, spicy pickle of vinegar, onion, sliced carrot…
- Festival A slightly sweet, elongated fried dumpling made from flour, cornmeal, and sugar — crisp and…
- Fish tea A light, peppery fish broth boiled with green banana, yam, dumpling, and seasonings — a…
- Foo-foo A dish of boiled starchy provisions — yam, green plantain or cassava — pounded into a…
- Food Food, cooked or ground provisions — but in Patois it stretches beyond the plate.
- Fricassee A way of cooking chicken — 'fricassee chicken' — in which the seasoned pieces are browned…
- Fritters Small flat cakes of seasoned batter fried crisp — most famously saltfish fritters ('stamp…
- Fry dumpling A round of flour dough fried until golden and crisp on the outside and soft within — a…
- Fry fish Whole fish — snapper, parrot, or the like — seasoned, sometimes scored, and fried crisp in…
- Fry plantain Ripe plantain sliced on the slant and fried until the edges caramelise to a soft, sweet…
- Genip The Spanish lime — a small, round, green-skinned fruit that grows in tight bunches.
- Ginger Ginger — the pungent root at the heart of Jamaican drink and cooking, grown in the hills…
- Ginger beer A fiery homemade drink of fresh grated ginger steeped with sugar, lime, and water —…
- Ginger tea A hot drink made by boiling or steeping fresh ginger root, taken as a warming remedy for a…
- Gizzada A small open Jamaican tart — a crimped little pastry shell filled with sweet, spiced…
- Goat head soup Goat head soup — better known as 'mannish water', the rich, peppery soup made from a goat's…
- Grater cake An old-time Jamaican coconut candy made from grated coconut boiled with sugar and set into…
- Green banana Unripe (green) banana, boiled and eaten as a starchy 'ground provision' rather than a sweet…
- Green banana porridge A smooth, hearty breakfast porridge made from grated or blended green (unripe) banana…
- Grung provision Ground provisions — the starchy root and tuber staples grown in the ground that form the…
- Guava A sweet, fragrant tropical fruit with pink or white seedy flesh, eaten fresh out of the…
- Guinness punch A rich, creamy drink made by blending Guinness stout with condensed milk, evaporated milk…
- Gungo peas Pigeon peas — a small, round legume borne on a bush, especially associated with Christmas…
- Gungo soup A thick soup built on gungo (pigeon) peas, boiled down with ground provisions, yam…
- Hard dough The dense, slightly sweet white loaf — 'hardo bread' — that is the everyday bread of the…
- Hard dough bread A dense, firm, slightly sweet white loaf — the everyday Jamaican bread, sold sliced or…
- Hominy Dried, hulled corn kernels — and the thick, creamy porridge made by boiling them slowly…
- Hominy corn Dried, hulled corn kernels, boiled soft and cooked into 'hominy corn porridge' — a thick…
- Honey Honey — and, as a term of endearment, a sweetheart or dear one ('come here, honey').
- Igloo A cooler or ice chest — the insulated box packed with ice to keep drinks cold at a beach…
- Irish moss A thick, sweet, creamy drink made from a boiled seaweed (sea moss) blended with milk…
- Irish potato The ordinary white potato — called 'Irish potato', or just 'Irish', in Jamaica to tell it…
- Jackass corn A hard, crunchy baked coconut biscuit — flour, grated coconut, sugar, and spice baked into…
- Jackfish The jack — a firm-fleshed reef and coastal fish (the crevalle jack and its relatives) that…
- Jackfruit A huge tropical fruit with knobbly green skin and sweet golden fleshy pods inside, eaten…
- Jelly A jelly coconut — a young green coconut with soft, jelly-like flesh and sweet water inside.
- Jelly coconut A young, green coconut prized for its sweet water and the soft, spoonable white 'jelly'…
- Jerk A method of cooking meat (classically pork or chicken) by rubbing or marinating it in a…
- Jerk chicken Chicken marinated in fiery jerk seasoning — scotch bonnet pepper, pimento (allspice)…
- Jerk pork Pork rubbed with fiery jerk seasoning — scotch bonnet, pimento (allspice), thyme, scallion…
- Jerk-pan The roadside jerk grill made from a steel drum cut lengthwise and hinged — the smoky heart…
- Johnny-cake A fried dumpling — a small round of flour dough fried golden and crisp outside, soft within.
- Julie A prized variety of mango — small, sweet, smooth, and almost fibreless, with rich…
- Liva The liver — the Patois pronunciation of 'liver', naming both the body organ and the food.
- Liver and green banana A hearty breakfast dish of seasoned liver — cow or chicken — sautéed or stewed with onion…
- Macaroni Macaroni — chiefly the baked 'macaroni and cheese' (or 'macaroni pie'), a rich, cheesy side…
- Mackerel Salted or tinned mackerel — a cheap, filling protein at the heart of Jamaican working-class…
- Mackerel rundown Salted or pickled mackerel cooked down in coconut milk until the milk reduces to a thick…
- Magnum A very popular Jamaican brand of sweet, dark fortified 'tonic wine', drunk for its kick and…
- Mango The beloved sweet tropical fruit, of which Jamaica boasts dozens of named varieties —…
- Mannish water A thick, spicy goat soup made from the head, feet, tripe and offal of a goat, often cooked…
- Matrimony A traditional Jamaican fruit dessert made by mixing the pulp of star apple with orange…
- Milo The malted chocolate drink powder that is a breakfast and anytime staple in Jamaican homes…
- Mint Mint — the fragrant herb (often peppermint or the local 'mint bush') grown in the yard and…
- Mint ball A round, hard boiled sweet flavoured with peppermint — usually red-and-white striped — that…
- Mortar The wooden pounding bowl, used with a 'pestle', that is a fixture of the traditional…
- Naseberry The sapodilla — a small, round, rough brown-skinned fruit with sweet, soft, grainy brown…
- Nutmeg The warm, aromatic spice grated fresh into porridges, drinks, puddings, and 'sea moss' — a…
- Nyam To eat — especially to eat heartily, hungrily, or greedily.
- Nyam off To eat up completely — to devour or finish off food entirely, often quickly and greedily so…
- Nyammings Food;
- Oats porridge Porridge made from oats (oatmeal), cooked with milk and sweetened and spiced the Jamaican…
- Okra A green, ridged, finger-shaped pod vegetable with a characteristic slippery, 'draw' texture…
- Overproof High-strength white rum, well above the usual bottling strength (often around 63% alcohol)…
- Overproof rum Very high-strength white rum — 'over proof', well above standard strength (around 63%…
- Oxtail A rich, slow-braised stew of beef tail, simmered for hours until the meat falls off the…
- Oxtail and beans One of the most celebrated Jamaican dishes — the tail of the ox (cow), browned and…
- Oyster The small mangrove oyster gathered from the roots of the mangroves and the rocks along the…
- Pan-chicken Jerk chicken cooked and sold from the roadside 'jerk-pan' (steel-drum grill) — smoky…
- Paradise plum A traditional boiled hard sweet, usually two-toned red-and-yellow (or pink-and-white), oval…
- Parch corn Dry corn kernels parched — toasted in a hot pan or pot without oil until they harden…
- Patty A savoury baked pastry with a flaky, turmeric-tinted crust folded around a seasoned…
- Patty and coco bread The classic Jamaican quick meal: a hot beef (or chicken, or vegetable) patty tucked inside…
- Pawpaw The papaya — a large tropical fruit with sweet, soft, orange flesh, eaten ripe as a…
- Peanut porridge A warm, creamy breakfast porridge made from ground roasted peanuts blended with cornmeal or…
- Peanut punch A thick, sweet peanut drink blended from peanut butter (or ground peanuts), milk or…
- Pear The avocado.
- Pepper shrimp Small whole shrimp cooked fiery-hot with scotch bonnet pepper and salt until bright red —…
- Pepperpot soup A thick, dark-green Jamaican soup made from callaloo and other leafy greens (like Indian…
- Pestle Pestle — the heavy wooden club used with a mortar to pound and grind: spices, coffee, corn…
- Pick fowl To pluck the feathers from a killed chicken — usually after scalding it in hot water to…
- Pickapeppa A famous Jamaican brown sauce — dark, tangy, sweet-and-spicy, aged in oak barrels and made…
- Pimento Allspice — the dried berry of the pimento tree, and the single most important spice in…
- Pinda cake A hard, crunchy sweet made from peanuts ('pinda') set in melted sugar or syrup, broken or…
- Plantain A large starchy cousin of the banana, eaten cooked rather than raw.
- Plantain porridge A breakfast porridge made from blended green plantain cooked with coconut or condensed milk…
- Plantain tart A sweet Jamaican pastry of spiced, mashed ripe plantain folded into a half-moon of flaky…
- Pone A dense, sweet baked pudding — most famously 'sweet potato pone', made from grated sweet…
- Pork Pork — pig meat, eaten roast, stewed, or jerked, though avoided by Rastafari (who keep…
- Porridge Porridge — the thick, warm breakfast cereal cooked from cornmeal, hominy corn, oats…
- Potato pudding A dense, moist baked pudding made from grated sweet potato, coconut milk, flour, sugar…
- Provisions A collective term for starchy root vegetables and ground crops eaten as the heavy…
- Pumpkin The Jamaican (calabaza) pumpkin — a dense, sweet, deep-orange-fleshed squash used in…
- Pumpkin soup A thick, golden soup built on Jamaican pumpkin (a firm, orange-fleshed squash) cooked down…
- Red peas soup A thick, hearty soup of red kidney beans ('red peas') simmered with salt beef or pig's…
- Red Stripe Jamaica's iconic pale lager, brewed on the island since 1928 and sold worldwide in its…
- Rice an peas A staple Sunday-dinner dish of rice cooked with kidney beans (or pigeon peas) in coconut…
- Rice and peas Rice cooked with beans — usually red kidney beans or gungo (pigeon) peas — in coconut milk…
- Rice porridge A soft, soothing porridge of rice boiled slowly in plenty of water and milk until it breaks…
- Roas breadfruit A whole breadfruit roasted over an open fire or coals until the skin blackens and the…
- Roas corn Corn roasted in its husk over an open wood or coal fire until it is smoky and lightly…
- Roast breadfruit Breadfruit roasted whole over an open fire or coals until the skin chars black and the…
- Roast yam Yam roasted over an open fire or coals until the skin chars and the inside turns soft and…
- Rock cake A small, hard, craggy little cake — the 'rock cake' or rock bun — made from a stiff spiced…
- Roots drink A dark, bittersweet herbal tonic brewed from a mix of roots, barks, and herbs — sometimes…
- Roots wine A dark, bittersweet tonic drink brewed from a mix of boiled roots, barks, and herbs (such…
- Roti Roti — the soft, flat Indian-derived bread wrapped around curried chicken, goat, or…
- Rum cake A dark, dense, deeply spiced fruit cake soaked in Jamaican rum and red wine — the…
- Rum punch The classic Caribbean cocktail of rum mixed with fruit juices, syrup or sugar, lime, and a…
- Run dung A dish made by boiling down coconut milk until it reduces to an oily, custardy base ('the…
- Rundown A rich Jamaican dish in which fish, classically salted mackerel, or other ingredients are…
- Rundung Fish or salt mackerel simmered in coconut milk that has been boiled right down ('run down')…
- Saltfish Salted, dried codfish — soaked to draw out the salt, then flaked and cooked.
- Sardine Tinned sardines — small oily fish packed in oil or tomato sauce, a cheap and ready pantry…
- Sardine and bread A quick, cheap meal of canned sardines — mashed up with a little onion, pepper, and lime…
- Scallion Spring onion — usually called 'escallion' in Jamaica.
- Scotch bonnet A small, extremely hot chilli pepper with a wrinkled, lobed shape resembling a tam, central…
- Sea moss A drink and tonic made from a dried seaweed that is boiled until it dissolves into a thick…
- Season up To season food thoroughly, rubbing and marinating meat or fish with a full mix of herbs and…
- Seasoned rice A one-pot dish of rice cooked together with meat, vegetables, and full seasoning — often…
- Sky juice A cheap street treat of shaved or crushed ice packed into a clear plastic bag and drenched…
- Snapper The prized reef fish — especially the red snapper — that is the classic choice for fried…
- Snow cone Snow cone — shaved ice heaped in a cup or cone and drenched in bright, sweet syrup…
- Snowball A cooling street treat of finely shaved ice packed into a cup or a ball and drenched in…
- Soak out To soak something in water to draw out salt, blood, dirt, or bitterness before cooking —…
- Solomon gundy A spicy Jamaican pickled-fish paste — smoked herring (and sometimes shad) pounded fine with…
- Sorrel A deep-red drink brewed from the dried calyces (sepals) of the roselle hibiscus plant…
- Sour orange Sour orange — the tart, thick-skinned Seville-type orange whose sharp juice is a kitchen…
- Soursop A large, spiny, dark-green fruit with soft, white, tangy-sweet, fibrous pulp, most famously…
- Spice The seasonings that define Jamaican cooking — above all pimento (allspice), scotch bonnet…
- Spice bun A dark, sweet, spiced bun — the everyday, year-round cousin of the Easter bun — made with…
- Spinner A small, thin dumpling rolled between the palms into a little twist or spindle and dropped…
- Stamp an go A crisp saltfish fritter — flaked salted cod mixed into a seasoned flour batter and fried…
- Stamp and go Saltfish fritters — flaked salted codfish mixed into a seasoned flour batter with scallion…
- Steam down To cook food — especially fish or vegetables — gently in a little seasoned water or its own…
- Stew chicken Chicken seasoned, browned, and stewed down in a rich brown gravy with onion, garlic, thyme…
- Stew peas A hearty stew of red peas (kidney beans) cooked down with coconut milk, salted pig's tail…
- Stout Stout — the strong, dark, sweetish beer, above all Dragon Stout and Guinness, beloved…
- Suck-suck A homemade frozen treat of sweet flavoured water or juice frozen in a small plastic bag…
- Sugar cane The tall grass whose sweet juice is crushed to make sugar and rum — the crop at the very…
- Sunday dinna Sunday dinner — the big, special midday meal that anchors the Jamaican week: rice and peas…
- Susumba Small, round, pea-like green berries — turkey berry, also called 'gully beans' — with a…
- Sweet plantain A ripe plantain — its skin yellow and blackening, its flesh turned soft and sweet — as…
- Sweet potato The starchy, sweet-fleshed tuber that in Jamaica is simply the default 'potato' — boiled…
- Sweetie A sweet or candy — the everyday word for the boiled sweets, mints, and hard candies sold at…
- Syrup Sweet, brightly coloured flavoured sugar syrup — most famously the strawberry-red syrup…
- Tamarind ball A sweet-and-sour treat made from tamarind pulp kneaded with sugar — and often a little…
- Tambran ball A sweet-and-sour treat made from tamarind pulp ('tambran') rolled with sugar — and often a…
- Tambrin Tamarind — the sour brown pod fruit, and the many things made from it.
- Tangelo A juicy citrus fruit, a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit/pomelo, with easy-peel…
- Tapioca The starch extracted from cassava — used to make a smooth, translucent porridge or pudding…
- Tea In Jamaica, 'tea' means any hot morning drink — not only leaf tea.
- Thyme The herb thyme — a base seasoning of Jamaican cooking, its sprigs thrown into the pot with…
- Tin mackerel Canned mackerel — cheap, filling tinned fish that is a mainstay of the Jamaican store…
- Ting A tart, sparkling grapefruit soda made in Jamaica since the 1970s — refreshing, not too…
- Toto A dense, moist coconut cake — a simple baked square of flour, grated coconut, brown sugar…
- Tripe The stomach lining of a cow, cooked long and slow until tender in the hearty dish 'tripe…
- Tripe and bean A stew of tripe (the cleaned stomach lining of the cow) cooked long and slow with broad…
- Tun cornmeal 'Turned cornmeal' — cornmeal stirred ('turned') into a stiff, savoury mound as it cooks…
- Tun-tun A stiff, moulded cornmeal or flour porridge, cooked thick and 'turned' (stirred hard) until…
- Turn cornmeal A savoury dish of cornmeal stirred, or 'turned', into a thick, smooth mass as it cooks in a…
- Vienna sausage The little tinned sausages — cheap, soft, and pink — that are a pantry staple in Jamaican…
- Waata Water — the Patois pronunciation of 'water', with the vowel opened out.
- Wangla A brittle sweet made from sesame seeds bound together with melted sugar or syrup into a…
- Wash meat To rinse raw meat, chicken, or fish before cooking — traditionally with water and often…
- Water cracker A hard, plain, round biscuit — the classic Jamaican water cracker — eaten with everything…
- Whelk Whelk — the small sea snail picked off the rocks at the shore, boiled and eaten as a salty…
- White rum Clear, high-strength overproof rum (famously Wray & Nephew) — fiery, cheap, and everywhere.
- Wray and Nephew The iconic Jamaican white overproof rum — 'J.
- Yam A starchy edible tuber — a cornerstone 'ground provision' in Jamaican cooking, boiled and…
- Yampi A small, soft-fleshed variety of yam with a thin skin, prized for its smooth, almost creamy…
- Yellow yam The most common Jamaican yam — a large starchy tuber with rough brown skin and firm yellow…