NickSCFC wrote:I hate when countries try to claim ownership of something too.
It's not Jamaican, if it were possible to trace its roots back to the day of inception, you'll most likely find a single individual creating it.
What appalling reasoning.
Jamaican jerk cooking started with slaves so it would never be possible to tie it down to a “single individual”. But we do know that it is Jamaican in origin.
Nobody is suggesting that only Jamaicans can make jerk chicken, what Dawn Butler was saying was that jerk rice is not a thing and Jamie Oliver ought to respect what the dish is and not try and flog rice off of the back of Jamaican culture. Nobody has talked of a ban. Nobody has said non-Jamaicans can’t make or sell jerk chicken.
Personally I dislike a lot of the accusations of cultural appropriation. I don’t think it is helpful to criticise people for how they style their hair, or for the music they are making or the way they are dressing (as long as it is not in a piss taking way). This story was slightly different though, Jamie Oliver is just mashing words together and pretending that his product is associated with a culture, when he hasn’t even done the homework to find out what it is.