A Jamaican beef patty is an island’s his-
tory in the palm of your hand. All of its
spices, triumphs, fl uctuations and migra-
tions. They’re minced. Lathered. Chewed
between the fl akiest of pastry crusts. The
patty is a vehicle for deliciousness and a
simulacrum of the nation’s rhythms, and
your patty could be a late breakfast, or an
early lunch, or a boozy midnight snack.
You might eat yours in a paper bag. You
could order four under the streetlights of
a curbside pop-up. Or maybe, if you’re
lucky, it’s simply pulled from your oven,
tossed directly from your baking pan into
the loaf of coco bread on your counter. For
a moment, your only problem in the world
is wishing you had three or four more.
For the uninitiated, a beef patty is a meat
pie with a diced fi lling — oftentimes beef,
but it can be an abode for any number of22 2.27.22 Photograph by Linda Xiao Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.
Inner Warmth: The beef patty is quintessentially
Jamaican and now a food of the world.
Eat By Bryan Washington
A beef patty is both
deeply inconspicuous
and entirely singular,
a ritual taken for
granted that you
can’t help mourning
once it’s gone.stuffi ngs, including lobster, lamb, chicken,
cheese or the Jamaican fruit ackee. This
fi lling is layered in a suet-laden dough col-
ored by turmeric. And while the dish has
(mostly) avoided the Americanized ‘‘eleva-
tion’’ of so many immigrant cuisines, you’ll
fi nd beef patties in restaurants, across bar
tops and behind convenience-shop count-
ers wherever the Caribbean diaspora has
made a home.