How Jerk Chicken became Jamaica’s most iconic dish

Jerk chicken is one of Jamaica’s most distinctive culinary traditions, rooted in a complex history of indigenous practice, African resilience and colonial exchange. Its origins are commonly linked to the Maroons, descendants of enslaved Africans who escaped plantations and developed ingenious methods of seasoning and slow cooking meat over pimento wood fires in the Jamaican interior.

The technique combined African culinary knowledge with indigenous Taino smoking methods, using Scotch bonnet...