Jamaica - Food And Drink

   From fiery jerk meat to inventive seafood dishes and ubiquitous rice and peas, the Jamaican diet is surprisingly varied, and the Rasta preference for natural cooking means you can get good vegetarian food fairly easily. Snacking is good, too, with beef, vegetable or chicken patties the staple fare, and there is a vast selection of fresh fruit and vegetables. Outside Kingston and the north-coast resorts, international eating options are limited.

   The classic - and addictive - Jamaican breakfast is ackee and saltfish . The soft yellow flesh of the otherwise bland ackee fruit is fried with onions, sweet and hot peppers, fresh tomatoes and boiled, flaked salted cod. It's usually served with the delicious spinach-like callaloo , boiled green bananas and fried or boiled dumplings.

   Restaurants in Jamaica reflect the diversity of the people. Jamaica food has African, European, Asian, and Middle Eastern influences that combine to form a unique Jamaican cuisine in its own right. Restaurants cater to those seeking both haute cuisine and down-home cooking, as both genres are dotted across the island's popular resort regions and in some out-of-the-way mountain areas, with prices varying throughout. "Authentic" Jamaica food includes grilled meats and smoked fish, spicy seafood dishes, and lots of jerk (don't worry, it's a spice not an insult!). To complement the food, many restaurants serve customers on outdoor terraces so they can enjoy the Jamaican scenery as well.

   At most of Jamaica's cheaper restaurants and hotels, chicken and fish are the mainstays of lunch and dinner. Chicken is typically fried in a seasoned batter, jerked or curried, while fish can be grilled, steamed with okra and pimento pods, brown-stewed in a tasty sauce or " escovitched " - served in a spicy sauce of onions, hot peppers and vinegar. " Jerking " is the island's most distinctive cooking style. Meat - usually chicken or pork, but occasionally fish - is seasoned in a mixture of island-grown spices, including pimento, hot peppers, cinnamon and nutmeg, and then grilled slowly, often for hours, over a fire of pimento wood and under a cover of wooden slats or corrugated zinc sheets in a customized oil drum.

   Rice and peas (rice cooked with coconut, spices and red kidney beans) is the accompaniment to most meals, though you'll sometimes get bammy (a substantial bread made from cassava flour), festival (a light, sweet, fried dumpling), sweet or regular potatoes (the latter known as Irish potatoes), yam, dasheen (like a yam, but chewier), Johnny cakes or fried or boiled dumplings.

   Jamaica's water is safe to drink, and locally bottled spring water is widely available. For a tastier non-alcoholic drink , look no further than the roadside piles of coconuts in every town and village, often advertised with a sign saying " ice-cold jelly ". Other soft drinks include Jamaica's own Ting (a refreshing sparkling grapefruit drink), Malta (a fortifying malt drink), throat-tingling ginger beers and fresh limeade. Fresh fruit juices - tamarind, June plum, guava, soursop, strawberry and cucumber - are always delicious if occasionally over-sweet. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee is among the best and most expensive in the world, though the other local brews, such as High Mountain, Low Mountain or Mountain Blend, are also good.

   The national beer is the excellent Red Stripe. Heineken is widely available, as is locally brewed Guinness, which competes with the sweeter Dragon as the island's stout of choice. Wray and Nephew make the classic white overproof rum : cheap, potent, available everywhere and best knocked back with a mixer of Ting. There are plenty of less caustic brands of white rum, the smoothest being C.J. Wray Dry. If you're after taste rather than effect, try gold rums and the older, aged varieties such as Appleton Estate 12-year-old.

• Jamaica • Barbados • Barbuda • Nevis • Aruba • Cuba • Bermuda

• Bahamas • Curacao • St. Kitts • Bonaire • Grenada • St. Lucia • Anguilla

• Antigua • St. Eustatius • Dominica • Martinique • Puerto Rico • Guadeloupe • St. Barthelemy

• St.Maarten/St.Martin • Dominican Republic • British Virgin Islands • Cayman Islands • • •