Jerk (cooking)



Jerk is a style of cooking native to Jamaica, in which meat is dry-rubbed or wet marinated with a hot spice mixture called Jamaican jerk spice.

The art of jerking (or cooking with jerk spice) originated with indigenous peoples in Jamaica from the Arawak and Taíno tribes, and was carried forward by the descendants of 17th century Jamaican Maroons who intermingled with them.

The smoky taste of jerked meat is achieved using various cooking methods, including modern wood-burning ovens. The meat is normally chicken or pork, and the main ingredients of the spicy jerk marinade sauce are allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers. Jerk cooking is popular in Caribbean and West Indian diaspora communities throughout North America, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Etymology
The word jerk is said to come from charqui, a Spanish term of Quechua origin for jerked or dried meat, which eventually became the word jerky in English.

The term jerk spice (also commonly known as Jamaican jerk spice) refers to a spice rub. The word jerk refers variously to the spice rub, a wet marinade and mop sauce made from it, and to the particular cooking technique. Jerk cooking has developed a global following, most notably in American, Canadian and Western European cosmopolitan urban centres.

History
Historians have evidence that jerked meat was first cooked by the indigenous Taíno. During the invasion of Jamaica in 1655, the Spanish colonists freed their enslaved Africans who fled into the Jamaican countryside, intermingling with the remaining Taínos, learning and adapting aspects of their culture, and becoming some of the first Jamaican Maroons. It appears that these runaway slaves learned this practice from the Taíno. The technique of cooking in underground pits is speculated by some to have been used in order to avoid creating smoke which would have given away their location, though it is common throughout the world and best known in the West in the form of kālua-style imu cooking central to the luau. It is also speculated that the Taíno developed the style of cooking and seasoning. While all racial groups hunted the wild hog in the Jamaican interior, and used the practice of jerk to cook it in the seventeenth century, by the end of the eighteenth century most groups had switched to imported pork products. Only the Maroons continued the practice of hunting wild hogs and jerking the pork.

Jamaican jerk sauce primarily developed from these Maroons, seasoning wild hogs with native allspice and slow cooking them over indigenous pimento wood, and adding the also native Scotch bonnet pepper, which is largely responsible for the heat found in Caribbean jerks. Over time the basic recipe has been modified as various cultures added their influence.

Jerk cooking and seasoning has followed the Caribbean diaspora all over the world, and forms of jerk can now be found at restaurants almost anywhere a significant population of Caribbean descent exists, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, or the United States. Poulet boucané (or 'smoked chicken'), a dish found in French Caribbean countries such as Martinique and Guadeloupe, is quite similar to traditional Jamaican jerk chicken.

Techniques


The cooking technique of jerking, as well as the results it produces, has evolved over time from using pit fires to grilling over coals in old oil barrel halves. Around the 1960s, Caribbean entrepreneurs seeking an easier, more portable method of jerking cut oil barrels lengthwise, added holes for ventilation and hinged lids to capture the smoke. These barrels are fired with charcoal; other jerking methods include wood-burning ovens.



Street-side "jerk stands" or "jerk centres" are frequently found in Jamaica and the nearby Cayman Islands, as well as throughout the Caribbean diaspora and beyond. Jerked meat, usually chicken or pork, can be purchased along with hard dough bread, deep fried cassava bammy (flatbread, usually with fish), Jamaican fried dumplings (known as "Johnnycake" or "journey cakes"), and festival, a variation of sweet flavored fried dumplings made with sugar and served as a side.

Ingredients
Jerk seasoning principally consists of allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers. Other ingredients may include cloves, cinnamon, scallions, nutmeg, thyme, garlic, brown sugar, ginger, soy sauce, vinegar, and salt.

Uses
Jerk seasoning was originally used on chicken and pork, but in modern recipes it is used with other ingredients including fish, shrimp, shellfish, beef, sausage, lamb, goat, tofu, and vegetables.