Post by @crazykoreancooking

Jamaican beef patties literally carried me through my college years in Toronto. I probably ate thousands of them. It’s just so so good and I wanted to try to make it for mom and dad. Historians often trace the shape to the Cornish pasty British colonists brought and to Spanish-style turnovers, but the flavor is Creole—African spice layering, Indian curry and turmeric, Chinese bakery skill, and island heat. By 1926–27 Kingston papers were already advertising threepenny beef patties; in the 1930s shops like Bruce’s and Briggs made them a Cross Roads lunch. After independence, Chinese Jamaican bakers scaled the trade: Vincent and Valerie Chang opened Tastee in Kingston in 1966; Jukie Chin baked his first batch in 1978 and opened Juici in May Pen in 1980. Migrants carried the recipe to New York, London, Miami, and Toronto. In 1985 Canadian inspectors tried to ban the word “patty”; the Gleaner headlined it, the community won the right to say “Jamaican patty,” and February 23 became Patty Day in Toronto. #jamaican #jamaicanfood #kingston #montegobay