Jamaican Spices and Seasonings: Allspice, Scotch Bonnet, Thyme, Ginger and Curry Powder

Jamaican cooking leans on a short list of seasonings used with confidence: allspice, which Jamaicans call pimento; the Scotch bonnet chile; fresh thyme; scallions and garlic; ginger; and curry powder. Two are rooted in the region: allspice is native to it,¹ and Katzer says the Scotch bonnet’s species is mostly associated with the Caribbean.² This page covers each one, the dishes that tie them together, and links to our full profiles.

At a glance

Allspice (pimento)

Allspice is a single spice, the dried berry of Pimenta dioica, and Britannica lists Jamaican pepper and pimento among its names.⁸ The tree is native from southern Mexico through Central America and the Caribbean.¹ It grows elsewhere in the region too, but PROSEA reports that Jamaican pimento is considered the best quality.³ We found no figure showing what share of the world’s allspice Jamaica produces.

Britannica says the name comes from the berry’s flavor, which resembles a combination of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.⁸ The main aroma compound is eugenol, 50 to 80% of the berry oil according to PROSEA.³

Allspice is one of the two essential ingredients of jerk seasoning, along with Scotch bonnet, in the words of scholar Carolyn Cooper as quoted by Smithsonian Magazine; authentic jerk meat is also smoked over pimento wood.⁴ It goes into the pot for rice and peas as whole berries.⁵ Its use in escovitch fish is common practice, but we did not check a recipe source for it.

See allspice, allspice substitutes, allspice vs. cloves and too much allspice.

Scotch bonnet

The Scotch bonnet belongs to Capsicum chinense. Gernot Katzer names it as the Jamaican representative of that species, alongside the habanero in Cuba and Yucatán, and writes that the extreme heat of these chiles matters in Caribbean cooking.² He describes them as very hot with a typical flower-like scent.²

How hot? Dave DeWitt’s heat scale puts Scotch bonnet in its top band, 100,000 to 500,000 Scoville heat units, with the habanero.⁹ On the same scale, jalapeño varieties sit at 2,500 to 5,000 (TAM Mild) and 5,000 to 15,000 (Early Jalapeño).⁹ These are general ratings for pod types, not measurements of a particular harvest. We found no source for the claim that Jamaican food is spicier than other New World cuisines or less spicy than Indian or Indonesian food, so that comparison is left out.

Katzer notes that jerk paste uses these chiles.² In Cook’s Country’s rice and peas, a whole Scotch bonnet simmers with the rice to scent it.⁵ See habanero powder, cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes.

Jerk seasoning

Jerk is a way of seasoning, smoking and grilling meat, not only a spice mix, and Smithsonian lists Scotch bonnet peppers, scallions, garlic, ginger, pimento, thyme and cinnamon among the ingredients of modern recipes.⁴ Walkerswood, a Jamaican maker, builds its seasoning on fresh Scotch bonnets, escallion (scallion), pimento and thyme.⁶ Our jerk seasoning page compares four named ingredient lists side by side, including a USDA specification; there is no single recipe.

Marinating times vary by recipe. We found no source for a minimum of 24 hours, so treat any figure as the cook’s preference rather than a rule. See also jerk seasoning substitutes.

Thyme

Fresh thyme goes into jerk⁴ and into rice and peas, where Cook’s Country uses ten sprigs.⁵ Thyme is not native to the Caribbean; Kew gives its native range as southwestern Europe and southeastern Italy.¹⁰ We found no measure of which herb is most used in Jamaica, so we do not rank it.

See thyme, thyme uses, cooking with thyme and too much thyme.

Rice and peas: the seasonings together

Rice and peas shows how these flavors combine in an everyday dish. Cook’s Country’s recipe, which describes the dish as brought to Jamaica by enslaved West Africans, simmers red kidney beans and rice in coconut milk and broth with thyme sprigs, sliced scallions, chopped garlic, a whole Scotch bonnet and a quarter teaspoon of whole allspice berries.⁵

Ginger

Ginger is not native to the Americas. AramcoWorld’s history of the spice says Europeans carried it to the West African coast and the Caribbean.¹¹ It is among the ingredients Smithsonian lists for modern jerk recipes.⁴ Ginger is also the main flavor in ginger beer and is common in sorrel, the hibiscus drink; both are common practice that we did not check against a source, as is ginger’s place in the cooking of Jamaica’s Chinese community. See ginger, cooking with ginger and is ginger spicy?.

Curry powder

Curry came to Jamaica with Indian indentured workers. The African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica records that more than 36,000 Indians arrived between 1845 and 1917, and credits them with the use of curry powder to season meats and with curried goat, now a Jamaican specialty.⁷

Jamaican curry powder is led by turmeric. On two widely sold labels, turmeric comes first and allspice appears in both: Grace’s mild powder lists turmeric, salt, garlic and onion, cumin, coriander, black pepper, fenugreek and allspice,¹² and Blue Mountain’s lists turmeric, salt, coriander, fenugreek, cumin, allspice, cayenne and garlic.¹³ Writer Hank Shaw sums up the difference from Indian-style powders as more allspice and more turmeric.¹⁴ We found no measure of how its popularity compares with jerk seasoning.

See Jamaican curry powder, Jamaican vs. Indian curry powder, curry powder and cooking with curry powder.

Related pages

• Caribbean spices, Haitian spices and Cuban spices
• Bajan seasoning
• Nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, the spices allspice is said to resemble
• The master list of herbs and spices