The Jerk Center of the Universe -- Boston Bay Beach is the most famous jerk center in Jamaica, with at least a half-dozen smoky barbecue pits lining the potholed road that accesses the beach. Locals suggest that the jerk is as good as it gets here, in Portland Parish, where the culinary form originally developed. According to local traditions, Maroons (escaped slaves) living in the nearby hills of what is now known as Portland Parish were skilled at killing wild boar. Trading fresh-killed pork for spices from British or Jamaican merchants, they elevated the art of seasoning and slow-cooking pork, and later, chicken, fish, or whatever, over green pimiento wood into the art form as it's known today. According to Jamaican aficionados, Portland Parish is still the home of the best jerk food in the world. Sometimes residents of Kingston drive all the way up here just to stock up on these tasty, carefully seasoned bits of slow-cooked meat.
The jerk sauce is made from little rounds of crenellated red and yellow peppers grown in the countryside. After sampling one of these sauces, you'll surely agree that your favorite Texas red-hot sauce tastes like a cool glass of V8; the hot sauce is so hot that many visitors claim it's hallucinogenic. You can also purchase cans of the sauce from various vendors.
More adventurous jerk fans go for the pig or goat heads, cow feet, or chitterlings. All parts of the animal are cooked here -- and, really, after enough of that hot sauce, you won't know what you're eating anyway.
All the stands are good, but if hard-pressed to name our favorite jerk stand here, we'd give our vote to Mickey's, which occupies a painted concrete shell on the left, the first of the jerk stands you'll see as you navigate your way along the bumpy and potholed road leading towards the beach. You'll recognize the place by the rows of wooden skewers cooking pork and chicken over huge barbecue pits. Fish is also smoked here. You can also order "sides" of roast baked yams or roasted breadfruit.
The downing of this peppery food will give you a reason "to put out the fire," as the locals say, and that means downing one Red Stripe beer after another.
Better Than What the Snake Gave Eve -- If you want to taste one of the most luscious fruits grown in the West Indies, go into Musgrave Market and ask one of the fruit-and-vegetable vendors to sell you a juicy ripe plum called a "June." Some of the old-timers refer to the fruit as "Jew." After you bite into this succulent fruit, which locals will tell you came from the Garden of Eden, you'll become addicted to it.
