Jamaica: Serious Jerk at Scotchie’s

The barbecue grills out back at Scotchie's

Scotchie’s is a Montego Bay-area institution in Jamaica, both with tourists and locals. More a roadside stop than street food (it sits on the island’s main ring road), it’s where you find the simplest and most holy of all Caribbean cuisines: bonafide Jamaican jerk.

The Scotchie’s facade looks just like 80% of Jamaica’s buildings, half-assembled and surrounded by a moat of rubble. In a low-wage economy where banks lend at 13%, construction waits for ready cash; even a successful restaurant isn’t immune to this system. So someday, Scotchie’s will be larger and prettier…but hopefully, the food will taste just as gorgeous as it does now.

There is reverence here for jerk. In fact, the name Scotchie’s refers to the Scotch bonnet peppers that, along with allspice, form the building blocks of jerk spice. Here, pork, chicken and fish are seasoned without mercy, then barbecued over huge grills laid with allspice (or “pimento” in Jamaican patois) wood. The smoke and heat out back by the grills smells just like a woodsy heaven, but could singe your eyebrows off your face.

Everyone lines up to order from a little window, and though prices are featured in Jamaican dollars, US currency is welcome. ($1 US = $90 JM) You take your ticket to the next booth, they hand you your food wrapped in piecemeal bundles of tin foil. Grab more napkins than you think you’ll need and take a seat at the palapa hut bar or a shaded table with oil drum stools.

Scotchie's rubbly facade and lunchtime crowd

Almost every portion is large enough for a couple to share. We ordered the jerk chicken (fell off the bone, but not before gently singeing the edges of our mouths with pepper and garlic), chicken sausage (dense and a little grainy), a sweet potato (pale yellow and crispy-dry, be sure to add some butter), coconut water for me (in a plastic bottle, not a coconut) and for Adam, a cranberry water (an Ocean Spray concoction). Rounding up our rich and starchy meal, red beans and rice and a blessed creation called “festival,” which could take on the fried dough at any state fair. This fair-sized finger of bread is slightly sweet, golden brown and could potentially cause dissent; be sure to order one for each of you.  (Lunch for two, about $13 US)

Photo by Kara Williams

NOTE: Having just read the Wikipedia entry for “Jamaican jerk spice,” I’m fascinated to learn that: “The Quechua word charqui (dried meat) gave the name to both the Caribbean term jerk and the North American term jerky.”  And here I’d thought jerk was a West African thing…Though the disease-ridden, marauding Spanish all but wiped out the native Arawak/Taino Indians in Jamaica, it seems that at least one of their traditions has thrived in modern society.