A CULINARY CONNECTION

On Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, food traditions include a little-known history of Jamaican influence.

- Kayla Stewart

IT WAS NEARLY nightfall when I arrived at Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, the coastal town that I would call home during my first trip to Costa Rica. I checked in to my hotel, Satta Lodge (doubles from $165), which sits in the jungle a short distance from the shoreline. What called me to this lush country was not the nearby sloth sanctuary, or the rainforests of Corcovado National Park, or even the alluring beaches. I was there to experience the nation's Jamaican cuisine, forged by the community's long history in Limón province, on Costa's Rica's eastern seaboard.

In the early 1800s, Caribbean fishermen began to settle along the same coast where, a century or so later, a young Marcus Garvey would begin his career as a political and racial justice activist. A massive project in the 1870s to construct a railway to transport coffee from the Costa Rican highlands to Limón attracted a large population of Jamaicans looking for employment.

At the beginning of the 20th century, roughly 20,000 people migrated from Jamaica to Costa Rica to work at the notorious United Fruit Co. plantations, where, despite the repressive conditions, the newcomers were able to maintain their traditions, which influenced the region's culture and cuisine.

Today, many of these Jamaicans' descendants live in other parts of Costa Rica, but their influence remains strongest in Limón, where Afro-Caribbean culture is woven into the fabric of the region. Green, black, and red, the colors of the flag Garvey created as a symbol of the Pan-Africanist movement he championed, are emblazoned across the walls of restaurants and bars, as matter where we go in the world, we're still Black. We are supposed to love our culture, and our traditions. We should be proud, because this is what we made."