The Jamaican Creole meal is not divided into starter-main-dessert. It is organized around a starch base — rice or "ground provisions" (yam, green banana, dasheen, cassava) — on which are placed a salted protein (cod, fish, meat) and a spicy seasoning. Morning calls for a hearty dish that sticks to the body before the day; Sunday, a richer festive dish; and throughout, spiced drinks and restorative broths. The black folk cuisine that Garvey shared, from the huts of St. Ann's Bay to the kitchens of Harlem, follows this logic of the generous and resourceful "one pot."

Dried berry of the pimenta dioica tree, endemic to the Greater Antilles — a single grain evokes cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg all at once. It is the aromatic soul of Jamaican cuisine, from fish broth to sorrel drink; a product of which the island was the world's leading supplier, botanical pride of Garvey's native land.