Ackee names
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From Barbara Phillips Long:
How did a meal that combines a preserved North Atlantic fish and a potentially deadly West African fruit become Jamaica’s national dish?
Ackee and saltfish is synonymous with Jamaica, as entwined with the national identity as reggae or cricket. Spiked with herbs and peppers and accompanied by rich Caribbean trimmings like plantains and breadfruit, it pays testimony to the country’s tempestuous history and multiracial roots. The world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt reputedly has it for breakfast. But how did a meal that combines a preserved North Atlantic fish and a potentially toxic West African fruit become Jamaica’s national dish?
The answer is embedded in the country’s history of slavery. Ackee is a voluptuous, red-skinned fruit related to the lychee that is native to Ghana. Saltfish originates in the choppy seas of Northern Europe and Eastern Canada. The ingredients’ subsequent marriage in the kitchens and restaurants of Jamaica was a direct result of the triangular slave trade between Britain, West Africa and its Caribbean colonies in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
"Ackee was brought to the island, probably on a slave ship from West Africa, sometime in the mid-1700s," explained Janet Crick, director of Jamaica Culinary Tours in Falmouth on the island’s north coast. "Its name is derived from the original name of the fruit in the Ghanaian Twi language: ankye. Interestingly, its scientific name Blighia Sapida was accorded in 1806 in honour of Captain Bligh (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame), who took the plant from Jamaica to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London, in 1793. Prior to this, the ackee was unknown to science."
Saltfish (traditionally cod) is caught and prepared in the North Atlantic. In the days before freezers and refrigerators, drying and salting was the main means of preserving fish. By the mid-17th Century, it became economically viable to transport large quantities of salted cod from Nova Scotia in Canada to Britain’s Caribbean colonies, where it was traded for rum, sugar and molasses.
That both foods became staples in colonial Jamaica was not surprising. Non-perishable saltfish is inexpensive, easy to store and high in protein. Ackee is loaded with fibre, protein and vitamin C. In Jamaica’s brutal slave society, the foodstuffs made a cheap and nutritious repast for enslaved people on the country’s hot, humid sugar plantations. There is no record of when the two ingredients were first combined in one dish; but at some point over the last century, a definitive recipe emerged.
"First you boil the ackee and saltfish together for around 20 minutes before draining and removing any fish bones," explained Cuthbert Binns, executive chef at Pelican Grill, a longstanding restaurant on Montego Bay’s Hip Strip. "In this way the ackee absorbs some of the salt."
Despite its vivid vermillion skin, ackee has a dark side: the fruit is toxic when unripe. Eating it before it is mature induces what is known as Jamaican vomiting sickness, which, on rare occasions, can be fatal. Time Magazine has listed ackee as one of the world’s 10 most dangerous foods. As a result, its trade is carefully controlled. In 1973, the American FDA (Food and Drug Administration) banned the importation of ackee into the US. After a protracted lobbying campaign by the Jamaica Ackee Task Force, the ban was partially lifted in 2000, allowing canned or frozen ackee to be imported as long as it meets tight FDA regulations.
For Jamaicans, there are no such restrictions. Ackee is often sold by the roadside on makeshift tables mere metres from its mother tree. "It is safe to pick ackee when the fruit has opened naturally and you can see the yellow pods inside without forcing the fruit open," said Crick. "Ackee contains a toxic gas, hypoglycin A, which is released when the red fruit pops open, meaning it is mature and ready for consumption."
For Jamaican food aficionados, the nuances go further. There are two different types of ackee – cheese and butter – each with their culinary merits. "The flesh of butter ackee has a richer, more yellow colour," said Crick. "It boils quickly and mashes or disintegrates very easily when cooked. By contrast, cheese ackee is a lighter pale colour and much firmer in texture, causing it to stand up more readily to the cooking process."
Ackee’s poisonous image has meant its adoption as a food delicacy outside Jamaica has been limited. In West Africa, the seeds and pods are used to make soap. In Haiti, food shortages have sometimes led to illnesses and deaths after people have eaten unripe ackee.
For the Jamaican diaspora, getting fresh ackee is difficult. Most expats have to settle for the canned variety, an adequate if unspectacular substitute akin to eating tinned peaches rather than juicy market fruit. Saltfish is similarly variable. These days it is more likely to come from Norway or Guyana than Nova Scotia. While cod is still the default, depleted stocks in recent years means that other white fish such as tilapia is sometimes used.
Although having a long-held reputation as being poisonous with potential fatalities, the fruit arils are renowned as delicious when ripe, prepared properly, and cooked and are a feature of various Caribbean cuisines. Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica and is considered a delicacy.
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The fruit is pear-shaped and has three lobes (two to four lobes are common). When it ripens it turns from green to a bright red to yellow-orange and splits open to reveal three large, shiny black seeds, each partly surrounded by soft, creamy or spongy, white to yellow flesh — the aril having a nut-like flavour and texture of scrambled eggs. The fruit typically weighs 100–200 grams (3+1⁄2–7 ounces). The tree can produce fruit throughout the year, although January–March and October–November are typically periods of fruit production.
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The fruit has various uses in West Africa and in rural areas of the Caribbean Islands, including use of its "soap" properties as a laundering agent or fish poison. The fragrant flowers may be used as decoration or cologne, and the durable heartwood used for construction, pilings, oars, paddles and casks. In African traditional medicine, the ripe arils, leaves or bark were used to treat minor ailments.
The seeds were formerly used as standardized weights for weighing gold dust, leading to the currency issued by Great Britain in the former colony of Gold Coast to be named the "Gold Coast ackey".
Vernacular names in African languages| Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Bambara | finsan | akee apple |
| Kabiye | kpɩ́zʋ̀ʋ̀ | akee apple |
| Yoruba | iṣin | |
| Dagaare | kyira | |
| Ewe | atsa |
Selected readings
- "Jafaican doesn't exist" (8/28/11)
- "Toronto Jamaican" (1/22/14)
Rodger C said,
April 14, 2026 @ 9:27 am
How do scientists unaware of history normally pronounce "Blighia"?
Robert Coren said,
April 14, 2026 @ 9:29 am
When I was a kid we had a Harry Belafonte record which included this song, and I was never able to decipher the part of that line before "fish"; this is the first time I ever knew what the words actually were. (Well, I haven't actually heard it in 65 years or more.)
J.W. Brewer said,
April 14, 2026 @ 9:43 am
I learn from wikipedia that the fruit of a different tree in the soapberry family (indigenous to the Caribbean) is potentially-confusingly known as, among many other names, "Bajan ackee." (That's "Bajan" as the adjective for "of or pertaining to Barbados," having experienced some phonological erosion from the more hi-falutin' "Barbadian.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melicoccus_bijugatus
Jonathan Smith said,
April 14, 2026 @ 11:37 am
re: reported Twi ankye, cf. e.g. Taiwanese âng-khī 'Diospyros kaki, Oriental persimmon'. Hmmm….
Cuconnacht said,
April 14, 2026 @ 12:57 pm
"The seeds were formerly used as standardized weights for weighing gold dust." They must be as uniform in weight as carob seeds, Greek keration > carat/karat.
M. Paul Shore said,
April 14, 2026 @ 6:17 pm
Some clarifying notes about “Jamaica Farewell”:
While the song was sung by Harry Belafonte, to great success, starting in the mid fifties, it was not by Harry Belafonte, nor did he make any claims to that effect. Rather, the melody was pre-existing and apparently of folk origin, having previously been used in the Jamaican song “Iron Bar”; the lyrics were by frequent Belafonte collaborator Irving Burgie (1924-2019), an American songwriter of half-Barbadian ancestry.
The song belongs to the Jamaican “mento” genre, a genre whose music has often been mislabeled “calypso” for commercial reasons. (Calypso in the strict sense of the word is a Trinidadian genre.)
Lars Skovlund said,
April 15, 2026 @ 2:26 am
Mi carry mi ackee go a Linstead Market
Not a quattie worth sell
Mi Carry me ackee go a Linstead Market
Not a quattie worth sell
Lord what night, not a bite
What a Saturday night
Lawd what a night not a bite
What a Saturday night
ajay said,
April 15, 2026 @ 3:47 am
How do scientists unaware of history normally pronounce "Blighia"?
Well, fuchsia is definitely not pronounced in the way you would expect someone to pronounce something named after someone called Leonhardt Fuchs. (One of the characters in "Smallbone Deceased" has a rather puzzling conversation with a Cockney colleague about something called "fewshas" which he thinks are something traded on the Stock Exchange but which turn out to be something the Cockney grows in his garden. Does this imply that in the 1940s middle-class English people still called them "fooksias" and "fewsha" was seen as erroneous?)
Victor Mair said,
April 15, 2026 @ 6:59 am
"Explosion Cheese Durian Pie" (9/23/19) — featuring Fuchsia Dunlop
Luke said,
April 22, 2026 @ 5:03 am
I have nothing linguistic to offer other than the fact that ackee and saltfish is part of my heritage (my mum is Jamaican) and I love it.