Jerk chicken, Brooklyn

Jerk chicken, Brooklyn, originally uploaded by Itinerant.

Most folk think the term in Jamaican Jerk meats (Jerked Chicken, Beef etc) refers to the Jerk sauce or marinade.

It's part of it, but it actually refers to the process. When I was a kid, my late aunt did a traditional cookout, done the same way since the slave days. They dug a pit, put down and lit charcoal. Above the fire, they put the meats, covered it up in banana tree leaves, then put other and various sundries above the meats like pots of rice and breads and puddings in tins and pots, then covered everything again in Banana leaves.

Everything was slow-cooked during the day and was removed at the end of the day. The meats, subject to the highest heat and yet not to direct flame. The meats, cooked for several hours, was the traditional jerked meats, tender and slow-cooked.

Nowadays to do jerked meats properly, you slow meats over a grill with a low flame, in the oven at low heat for hours on end.

Done right, the meats should be so tender that meat should melt in your mouth and the bones can be chewed and eaten.

This is jerk chicken.