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Jamaican Diaspora Foodways

Diaspora

One of the most food-visible diasporas in the world. The UNITED KINGDOM — the WINDRUSH generation from 1948 to Brixton, Handsworth, Moss Side and Chapeltown, and the patty, the jerk shop, the Caribbean takeaway and Notting Hill Carnival that followed. The UNITED STATES — Brooklyn above all, plus Florida, Hartford and Atlanta. CANADA — Toronto, where the patty is a municipal institution and survived a 1985 government attempt to stop it being called a patty. ⚠ DIASPORA JAMAICAN FOOD IS ITS OWN THING: the British Jamaican takeaway, the Brooklyn roti shop and the Toronto patty are not identical to Kingston, and are recorded as developments rather than copies.

Atlas — where and when

Communities and languages

  • Jamaicans abroad community documented

Languages: Jamaican Patois, English

What is recorded

  • Jamaican migration to the United Kingdom from 1948 — the Windrush generation — established the patty, the jerk shop and the Caribbean takeaway as British institutions. In Toronto the Jamaican patty survived a 1985 regulatory attempt to prevent its being called a patty. Diaspora Jamaican food is recorded as developing distinctly rather than replicating island practice. documented
  • The Windrush generation: Caribbean migration to Britain, and with it the patty, the jerk shop and the Caribbean takeaway. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • migrated to American documented
  • migrated to British Foodways documented

    The Windrush generation from 1948; the patty and the jerk shop are now British food.

  • migrated to Canadian Foodways documented

    Toronto, and Little Jamaica on Eglinton West.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.