Taíno-Carib
A to Z
Copyright 2017
Copyright 2017
Introduction
Have you ever had delicious Jamaican jerk chicken, fish or pork? "Jerk", is related to jerky, from a Maya word for drying meat. Jamaican jerk is the local name for the indigenous Yamaye Taíno form of cooking on a grill, called barbecoa, the origin of the word barbecue. Two of the main spices in jerk are habañero peppers and pimento, or allspice.Before jerk chicken, there was jerk pork, mainly from wild pigs hunted by Jamaican Maroons. Maroon, is from the word Cimarron (meaning "untamed"), who were originally Taínos who had moved themselves away into the wilds from subjugation on Spanish ranches. In English, "Maroon" later described those enslaved Africans and mestizos who had escaped into the wilds to join and learn from the Cimarrones.
For millennia, in the Western Hemisphere the Taíno and Kalinago (or Island Carib) people of the Caribbean had been using spices, foodstuffs and technologies that eventually entered the Eastern Hemisphere, beginning in 1492. For both the Western and Eastern Hemispheres the most important event of the second millennium AD was the Columbian Encounter. The Encounter began when the voyages of Christopher Columbus brought the Eastern and Western Hemispheres together upon his entry into the tropical region of a territory which came to be known as the Caribbean. Although there is evidence of Chinese and other Precolumbian contact, the 1492 event was sustained when competitive European rivalries saught to exploit the Americas for trade goods, exotic woods and precious minerals. The ancient islands and continents of this western hemisphere came to be called the New World and ultimately the Americas. Obviously, “New” only applied to the Europeans whose recorded knowledge of the Americas began in the 15th century AD. There is no doubt that these Amerindian encounters resulted in the greatest impact on the forming of our modern civilizations.
This article is the first that begins alphabetically
with an ancient Tropical American spice that, in one "All-spice" berry, contained multiple
flavors of those spices originally obtained mainly by overland caravans from Mollucca Island
group in Indonesia.
During the Middle Ages, Chinese,
Arab and Malay traders purchased nutmeg in what is now Indonesia and Southeast
Asia and carried it in boats to the Persian Gulf or by camel and pack animal on
the Silk Road. From the Gulf the spices made their way to Constantinople and Damascus
and eventually Europe.---http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat54/sub345/item1610.html
(Constantinople fell last to the Turks by 1453). ...
a Turkish Blockade to stop trade with Europe and
fostered pirate sea raids. With the
Turkish blockade, Spain was about to be introduced to the Caribbean’s Allspice.
Allspice
Allspice (all-spice) 1. The English word for the Taíno berry which is grown
commercially in Jamaica.
2. Locally called pimento
(from the Spanish "pimenta", who thought that it was a pepper) and
exported internationally as allspice.
3. A most unusual spice
which is reputed to have the combined flavors of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and a
mild pepper. 4. Once called “Jamaica
pepper” by the 17th century British. In 1662 (three years before
seizing the island from the Spanish) a British comment in London described Jamaica Pepper as “that most delicate of
Spices”. Imported in Europe in 1601. https://www.britannica.com/plant/allspice
In search of lucrative spices from
the East the explorer Christopher Columbus brought back what some Europeans
called “false” spices from the
To
the European taste buds the allspice berry was like a combination of cinnamon,
nutmeg, cloves and a mild pepper. Biting into a dry allspice berry produces a
peppery sensation that first assails the tip of the tongue. This taste
experience is followed by a pleasant warmth which bathes the lips and mouth. The
allspice is native to Jamaica
The
30 foot tall trees once grew wild in the cool Jamaican mountains. Commercially
grown allspice trees were later evenly laid out in orderly pimento “walks”
(groves). For sun drying, mature green berries were harvested then spread out
on large, flat concrete platforms called “barbecues”. The dry coca-brown
colored berries were bagged in burlap sacks
and exported to processing plants where the allspice was then packaged
whole or ground into a powder. [1]
Essential oil is also extracted from the allspice berry.
The oil is commercially used in catsup, meat sauces, baked goods, in the
reproduction of certain fruit flavors and as spice blends for pickles and
sausages. In Jamaica a liqueur called pimento dram is made by steeping the ripe
berries in overproof Jamaican rum with added cinnamon.
Allspice
spice is used in the seasoning and making of Jamaican jerk pork, chicken or
fish. To “jerk” meats is a Taino method of barbecuing (and preserving meat)
over a slow fire. This Taino cooking technique was passed down to the present
time through the Maroons of Jamaica. Eastern and western Maroons were skilled
at hunting the Spanish-introduced wild pig and making jerk pork. The barbacu (a Taino word from which we get
“barbecue”) built by Maroons is
called a caban and is best
constructed from green allspice branches (see barbecue). For years,
before the commercialization of jerk chicken, the best jerk pork came from
The
[2]
validity of allspice as a healing herb has been confirmed by modern science.
Allspice powder is used to make a tea which soothes indigestion. In Jamaica Guatemala
*Recipe for Pimento Dram;
1 cup light rum; 1/4 cup whole allspice berries;1 cinnamon stick; 1 1/2 cup
water; 2/3 cup brown sugar. Steeping ground berries in rum takes a few months.Go
to http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2012/02/diy-vs-buy-should-i-make-my-own-allspice-dram.html
