Imagine someone trying to do you a solid and educate you on what “true” Jamaican food consists of. And then they offer you doctored recipes, and the photos of the dishes look nothing like you expected. That’s exactly what happened when BuzzFeed posted an article titled, “27 Essential Jamaican Recipes You Need in Your Life.”
One photo in particular that caught the eye of social media was a curry goat dish. Here’s the photo BuzzFeed used:
At first glance, I’m not even sure what it looks like, but it definitely doesn’t look like:
Those on social media who saw the BuzzFeed post got a huge laugh out of the dishes it was trying to pass off as Jamaican dishes, and users started the #BuzzFeedBeLike hashtag to mock the site:
https://twitter.com/SwadeDaVillain/status/633674754948399104https://twitter.com/J_Mitch93/status/633788874318286848https://twitter.com/tarikkoon/status/633683476785422337https://twitter.com/TinamaNina/status/633680052492767232https://twitter.com/SeanChrisCASTLE/status/633674747360837632https://twitter.com/ThatDudeMCFLY/status/633801127331545088
But in BuzzFeed’s defense, it looks as though the editors just scoured the Internet and found what others were passing off as these dishes. Between the doctoring and gentrification of a beef patty, if editors had searched a little harder, I’m sure they could have came across more authentic Jamaican dishes. It’s OK to take creative liberties when it comes to recipes, but when you use the word “essential,” let’s also try to use the word “authentic” as well.
Just in case you need to know what authentic Jamaican dishes look like, here’s a primer:
https://twitter.com/ashrouen/status/633803168065921024