Fried fish, pickled heat, and coconut-sea flavors

Seafood is central to Jamaican cuisine, and escovitch fish is one of the most iconic preparations: fried fish topped with a spicy-tangy pickled vegetable dressing. Food historians commonly link “escovitch” to Spanish escabeche (pickling/marinating), showing how Jamaican foodways absorbed and transformed older colonial-era techniques into something distinctly local.