From Africa to the Caribbean: 9 Dishes That Crossed the Atlantic
Same flavours, different shores. 🌍 ➜ 🌴
Enslaved Africans were forced across the Atlantic with nothing. But they carried what no one could take from them: the memory of their food. Techniques, ingredients, recipes, words.
Centuries later, you can taste West and Central Africa in a Jamaican breakfast, a Barbadian lunch or a Martinican apéro. Here are 9 Caribbean dishes with African roots, and the originals they come from.
🗣️ Even the words travelled. In Jamaica, "nyam" means to eat. It comes from Fula. Okra comes from the Igbo word ọkwurụ. Food is where the African memory of the Caribbean is most alive.
The 9 pairs at a glance
African original | Caribbean version | Where |
Akara / koose | Accras, saltfish fritters | Martinique, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Trinidad |
Ackee (Akan ánkyẽ) | Ackee and saltfish | Jamaica |
Fufu | Mofongo, fufú, mangú | Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic |
Banku / funge | Cou-cou, fungee, fungi | Barbados, Antigua, Virgin Islands |
Dokono / kenkey | Duckunoo, ducana, doukounou | Jamaica, Antigua, Haiti |
Okra stews | Callaloo, calalou | Trinidad, Dominica, Martinique, Guadeloupe |
Bissap / sobolo | Sorrel | Jamaica, Trinidad |
Maroon know-how | Jerk | Jamaica |
Rice and beans dishes | Rice and peas | Jamaica and beyond |
1. Accras ⟵ Akara
The fritter that crossed the ocean.
🌍 In Africa: akara among the Yoruba in Nigeria and Benin, koose in Ghana, accara in Senegal. A fritter of black-eyed peas, crushed with onion and pepper, fried until golden.
🌴 In the Caribbean: in Martinique and Guadeloupe, the black-eyed peas gave way to salt cod: accras de morue, the essential apéro. In Jamaica, saltfish fritters are called stamp and go. In Trinidad, accra comes with floats, a fried bread.
💡 Did you know? even the name stayed almost the same: akara, accara, accra.
2. Ackee and saltfish ⟵ Ackee
Jamaica's national dish grows on a West African tree.
🌍 In Africa: the ackee tree is native to West Africa. Its Jamaican name comes from the Akan word ánkyẽ.
🌴 In the Caribbean: the tree reached Jamaica before 1773. Today ackee is the national fruit, and ackee and saltfish, sautéed with onion, tomato and scotch bonnet, is the national dish. Served at breakfast with fried dumplings or boiled green bananas.
💡 Did you know? ackee is only eaten when the pod opens on its own. Unripe, it is toxic. Jamaicans say the fruit has to "yawn" first.
3. Mofongo ⟵ Fufu
Pound it, shape it, share it.
🌍 In Africa: fufu, pounded cassava, yam or plantain, the swallow of West and Central Africa, eaten by hand with soups and stews.
🌴 In the Caribbean: in Puerto Rico it became mofongo: green plantain mashed in a wooden pilón with garlic and pork crackling. Cuba has fufú de plátano, the Dominican Republic has mangú. The word mofongo comes from Kikongo, a language of Central Africa.
💡 Did you know? Africans enslaved in the Spanish colonies brought the technique of mashing starchy food with a mallet. The pilón is its heir.
4. Cou-cou ⟵ Banku and funge
Cornmeal, okra, and a wooden stick.
🌍 In Africa: in Ghana, banku: fermented corn dough, stirred and served with okra stew and fish. In Angola, funge, made with cornmeal or cassava.
🌴 In the Caribbean: in Barbados, cou-cou and flying fish is the national dish: cornmeal and okra stirred with a flat wooden cou-cou stick. In Antigua and the Leeward Islands, it's called fungee. In the Virgin Islands, fungi.
💡 Did you know? fungee and funge: Antigua and Angola use almost the same word.
5. Duckunoo ⟵ Dokono
Wrapped in a leaf, just like at home.
🌍 In Africa: in Ghana, dokono is the Fante name for kenkey: fermented corn dough wrapped in leaves and boiled. Sour, filling, eaten with fried fish and pepper.
🌴 In the Caribbean: in Jamaica, dokunu comes from the Fante-Akan dɔkono. It became a sweet pudding of sweet potato or cornmeal, coconut and spices, tied in a banana leaf. Nicknamed "blue draws" or "tie-a-leaf". In Antigua it's ducana, in Haiti doukounou.
💡 Did you know? the recipe changed, from sour to sweet, but the name and the leaf survived.
6. Callaloo ⟵ Okra stews
Green, slow-cooked, and full of memory.
🌍 In Africa: leafy greens and okra stews are everywhere in West and Central Africa. Okra itself is an African plant, and its name comes from Igbo.
🌴 In the Caribbean: callaloo uses local leaves, dasheen or amaranth, cooked with okra and often coconut milk. It's one of the national dishes of Trinidad and Tobago and Dominica. In Martinique and Guadeloupe, calalou au crabe is the Easter dish. One theory traces the word to Kimbundu, from Angola.
💡 Did you know? in Haitian Creole, kalalou simply means okra.
7. Sorrel ⟵ Bissap and sobolo
The red drink of Christmas.
🌍 In Africa: bissap in Senegal, sobolo in Ghana, zobo in Nigeria. The same flower, roselle hibiscus, steeped and spiced with ginger.
🌴 In the Caribbean: in Jamaica and Trinidad, it's called sorrel. The flower blooms at the end of the year, so sorrel became the Christmas drink, spiced with ginger and cloves, often with a splash of rum.
💡 Did you know? if you love bissap, you already know sorrel. Only the name and the season change.
8. Jerk ⟵ The Maroons
Smoke, spice and freedom.
🌍 In Africa: jerk is not an African recipe. It's an African story. The technique of slow-smoking spiced meat was first used by the Taíno, the island's first people.
🌴 In the Caribbean: Africans who escaped slavery, the Maroons, took refuge in Jamaica's mountains. They learned the technique from the Taíno and kept it alive, jerking wild hog over pimento wood. Today jerk is Jamaica's flavour, from Boston Bay to London.
💡 Did you know? jerk is born from resistance. Every bite carries the story of people who refused to be enslaved.
9. Rice and peas ⟵ Rice and beans
Sunday lunch, both sides of the ocean.
🌍 In Africa: rice cooked with beans is a West African staple. In Ghana, waakye: rice and black-eyed beans cooked together.
🌴 In the Caribbean: in Jamaica, rice and peas is cooked with kidney beans, coconut milk, thyme and scotch bonnet. African cooks shaped the dish, especially with pigeon peas and cow peas, which came to the Caribbean from Africa.
💡 Did you know? waakye and rice and peas are cousins, not twins. But the Sunday feeling is the same.
Where to taste them
🇯🇲 Jamaica: ackee and saltfish, duckunoo, jerk, rice and peas, and sorrel at Christmas.
🇲🇶 🇬🇵 Martinique and Guadeloupe: accras at every apéro, calalou au crabe at Easter.
🇧🇧 Barbados: cou-cou and flying fish.
🇵🇷 Puerto Rico: mofongo, everywhere.
🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago: callaloo, accra and floats.
Your questions
Which island for a food trip with African roots?
Jamaica has the most dishes on this list in one place. Martinique and Guadeloupe are the easiest from France, with accras and calalou. Puerto Rico for mofongo.
Is ackee dangerous?
Only unripe. Ripe ackee, picked once the pod opens on its own, is safe. In restaurants and from reputable vendors, there is nothing to worry about.
When is the best time to go for these dishes?
Christmas in Jamaica or Trinidad for sorrel. Easter in Martinique or Guadeloupe for calalou au crabe. The rest is on the menu all year.
Is waakye the same as rice and peas?
No. Waakye is cooked with black-eyed beans and often sorghum leaves, rice and peas with kidney beans and coconut milk. Cousins, not twins.
A trip on both sides of the Atlantic
The same flavours tell the same story, in Accra and in Kingston, in Dakar and in Fort-de-France. I design trips that follow that thread, in Africa and in the Caribbean.
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