How Curry Goat Became a Caribbean Classic

In 2011, a man named Rocky would soon get a new name. He dared to walk into a KFC in Portland, Jamaica and ask not for chicken, but for a dish close to his heart. “Mi tired a di chicken meat…mi waan curry goat and soda,” he insisted, earning himself the moniker Mr. Curry Goat. Despite the derision he faced, he wasn’t too far off: the first KFC on the island in the 1970s served the dish. 

While Jamaica’s national dish is ackee and saltfish, curry goat is a close contender. When someone asked former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is Jamaican and Indian, if curry goat is her favorite dish, she broke into patois and concurred, “Ya mon, ya mon.” Tifa named her 2018 debut album “Curry Goat and Champagne.” Reddit threads about where to find the best curry goat in Jamaica ignite passionate commentary. 

While curry goat originated in Jamaica, the dish is devotedly cooked, savored, and celebrated in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, and Belize. The Guyanese call the dish “goat curry” and Trinidadians, Tobagonians, and Jamaicans defend the label “curry goat,” but regardless of what you call it, the dish is a metaphor for how Indian contributions often go overlooked in Caribbean history.