Meaning
Salted, dried codfish — soaked to draw out the salt, then flaked and cooked. It is the other half of Jamaica's national dish, ackee and saltfish, and a foundation of the whole island's cooking, turning up in fritters, rundown, callaloo, and 'saltfish an' every kind of vegetable. Brought in during colonial times as cheap, keeping protein to feed the enslaved, it became woven so deep into the cuisine that no store cupboard is complete without it, and its salty, savoury flavour is one of the defining tastes of Jamaican food.
Examples
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Soak di saltfish overnight before yuh cook it.
Soak the saltfish overnight before you cook it.
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Ackee an saltfish a di national dish.
Ackee and saltfish is the national dish.
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She mek saltfish fritters fi breakfast.
She made saltfish fritters for breakfast.
Origin
Salted cod was imported to feed the enslaved population and became embedded in Jamaican cuisine; 'saltfish' is the everyday name for it.
How it’s used
A cornerstone ingredient; note 'saltfish' can also be used vulgarly as slang for the female genitals, so context matters.