The use of curry in Jamaican culinary culture is a direct influence of the Indian culture. Anyone familiar with Jamaican cuisine has been enraptured by the famous curried chicken and goat dishes. Locals and tourists can also be treated to curried lobster, curried shrimp, curried red snapper, even curried vegetable dishes, for the islands more health-conscious citizens and visitors. Historically the appearance of curry coincides with the arrival of Indians. There is no historical documentation of the availability of curry on any of the Greater Antilles islands (Dominica Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Cayman) or that the indigenous Tainos, Arawacks, or Caribs used it.
The first documented arrival of Indian indentured immigrants to Jamaica was on May 10, 1845, to work on sugar plantations in Clarendon, the island’s third-largest parish. Their purpose was to replace emancipated African slaves who refused to work for their former masters. Indians initially had a friendly relationship with Jamaicans of African descent. This was the main reason for African Jamaicans accepting many of the Indian practices. Ironically, the leading founding father of Rastafari grew up in Clarendon amongst Indians and their Hindu culture. Leonard Percival Howard was exposed to the daily ceremonies the Indians performed to honor their Gods, drinking ‘bhang’ ganja elixir, chanting ‘Jai Kali Mai’.
Indian indentured servants also brought to Jamaica the Hindu practices of ganja consumption for spiritual and medicinal purposes, mystical religious practices, and a vegetarian diet. Their greatest contribution was not culinary but in the realm of spirituality. Indians had astronomical influence on the early tenets of Rastafari.
The leading father of this movement that preached pride in one’s African ancestry, living close to nature, and self-sufficiency, Leonard Howell, borrowed many of the early tenets of the Rastafari movement from Indians.
The ital diet, a more disciplined form of vegetarianism, derives directly from the influence of indentured servants who were vegetarians continuing an ancient practice from India.