Jerk from Jamaica: Barbecue Caribbean Style [A Cookbook]

Great variety of recipes. I used it to make my own Jerk seasoning for smoking ribs and chicken

When we went to Jamaica in '05 for the first time, we broke out of the all-inclusive, rented a driver and took a day trip long the north coast. We had our first meat patties and stopped at the driver's favorite jerk stand and had our first real jerk chicken washed down with Red Stripe. When we cook out of this book, every recipe takes us back. We brought Helen's first book back with us from Jamaica and we never cooked anything from it that we didn't enjoy. What I get from this book is the sense of Jerk. I grow my own Scotch Bonnets and now prefer them over the many Habanero varieties I've grown. I look for the biggest Jamaican pimento berries I can find (usually at a Mexican grocery). If you've ever had jerk and wondered if you can do it too--buy this book. You can! Follow her recipes and it will be jerk, Mon.

This weekend my beau and I decided to bbq. I pulled out this book, since I figured a red stripe and some jerk pork ribs, chicken wings, and shrimp would be awesome. I found all three recipes to be delicious, in fact my 8 year old nephew refuses to eat shrimp and he continued to shovel in the jerk shrimp. First, my cooking skill level is minimal and I found the recipes easy to prepare. Second, I really like the fact that sauce and rub recipes are used more than once throughout the book. Third, at the end of our bbq, I did not have a lot of ingredients remaining allowing for very little waste. This is a great book, it has inspired me to try other Jamaican cookbooks.

It's not an in-depth, novel, overly self-aware, aggressively gourmet book. And that's OK. Thing about jerk is that it's really Food For The People, not haute cuisine. Get too fancy with it and it loses what makes it special in the first place. This book holds well to its roots, I think. It starts from simplicity and kind of keeps it that way. The idea here is to make jerk approachable for someone, so it's not going to get too crazy. And again, that's OK. If you've never had jerk before, or only at a restaurant, then this is a good way to get started. Indeed, after some time spent with this book you may decide that Americanized jerk is missing a certain something. What I'm trying to say is that I found this book to let me approach jerk in a bit more authentic way, I think. Again, it's simple, but then jerk is simple. I like the book very well as an introduction. I stop a little short because even after all I just said, I do wish there were a bit more, I don't know, guidance after one has gone through what this book has to give. It's an introduction but it's not an exhaustive study, and inevitably the home cook will want to experiment - which I don't know that this book really supports. That aside, I do like the book. It's helped me learn (or re-learn) jerk and my cooking is better as a result.

After our second trip to Jamaica, we decided to get a cookbook to try to recreate some of the delicious food we enjoyed there. We find this book to be very helpful, with simple recipes that so far have produced wonderful results. Ms. Willinsky has given clear directions and options for substitutions when authentic ingredients might be hard to find. We have now made several dinners using recipes from this book, and they have been wonderful!

I made the spice rub like the recipe in the book and have mainly cooked some of the chicken. It tastes very munch like that I buy down the street at a place that makes jerk dishes. The "cook" is from Jamaica and he says thats the way they make it down there. The tastes are quite a departure from any other foods I have eaten. The book is very well laid out with many pretty pictures. Tom...

This is another recipe book that pleased me very much.It was very easy to follow the recipes, it was also very colorful, so the reader can have an idea of how the finished meal will look. This is another book that I will recommend to someone who is now learning to cook as well as someone who wants to try different Island recipes.You will get it cheaper if you buy it from Amazon.

Ms. Willinsky has put together a very down to earth, readable and do-able cook book. I've tried three of the meats and one of the salads, and intend to do more. None of the jerk is too hot as written -- add your own peppers as you wish -- so nothing to be afraid cf "jerk" you may have had elsewhere. The flavors are very subtle.