Patties- Jamaican Food Experience

A creation influenced by various phases of English colonialism, patties contain spices from India, Africa and Jamaica. Patty is another traditional Jamaican specialty and is essentially deep fried flaky pastry filled with various meats or vegetables.

We tried fish and lobster patties at one of the food vendor shacks at the beach. It was fun to watch them make it- stretching the dough, filling it with shredded fish and veggies, then closing it and dropping it into the hot oil. They were made by a nice German lady who spoke with a heavy Jamaican accent and had long blond dreadlocks. These patties were fairly big and were enough for a meal. They had very mild flavor and we ate them with a home made sauce which was served in a ketchup bottle.

Later on, we found out form our taxi driver Jackie, about a good local patty place in downtown Negril. So, we headed there the next morning. The place is called ?Juici Patties? and it looked just like any run down fast food restaurant in the US, except it also had bars on the door and windows. "So much more" in the extension of the store name indicates that they also have juice and coconut bread.

There was a long line and everyone was ordering patties (well, that?s pretty much all they had). We got beef patties, as we heard they were most popular. Then we took our patties to the beach to enjoy them with the full effect. These patties were very delicious. They had lots of flavor and were a bit spicy.