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Boston Bay Birthplace · Jerk Pork

Jerk Pork (Boston Bay Style)

Jerk Pork (Boston Bay Style) — street food from Portland, Jamaica
Photo: Xaymacan / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The jerk pits at Boston Bay are widely credited as the birthplace of modern jerk cooking, where Maroon smoking techniques merged with Scotch bonnet and pimento wood in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Whole pork shoulders are marinated for hours in a fiery Scotch bonnet, pimento, thyme, and scallion paste, then slow-smoked over pimento wood in oil-drum pits and chopped to order at roadside stalls.

Why it's made this way: Portland's Boston Bay is the historically documented origin point of jerk cooking, tracing back to Maroon communities who settled the parish's mountainous interior.
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Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.