West Indian American Food: Rastafarian American Food

Distinctly associated with Jamaica, the Rastafarian movement and, by association, its cuisine is profoundly misunderstood as both a religion and a way of life. Rastafarianism is not a freewheeling mind-expanding movement predicated on the smoking of marijuana as many suppose but a formalized Abrahamic religion that is based in biblical scripture citing the power of African—specifically Ethiopian—princes’ associations with God. The first exposure of Africans to these scriptures was by virtue of the European slave trades and Christianization of African slaves. As such, it was as early as the sixteenth century when enslaved Africans looked to biblical references to the eventual rise of an anointed black kingdom as a hope for a future salvation from their collective bondage.