(upbeat music) (knife tapping) - [Narrator] Meet Ouida Bradshaw, owner and culinary captain at Jamaicaway Restaurant in the Nashville Farmers' Market.

For more than 20 years, She's brought the flavors of her home country, Jamaica, to her adopted home in Nashville, Tennessee.

(upbeat music continues) - Dee, do you know how to clean a coconut?

You know to do coconut for the drops?

- Jamaicaway is no stranger to the Nashville food scene.

And y'all have been an anchor here at the Nashville Farmers' Market.

So what was rewarding to you about sharing meals with others and just kind of everything that's involved in hospitality and food?

- You know what I love about food?

I love to see people eat food.

I really enjoy seeing people eat food.

I like when they're licking their fingers, and they're like, oh, taking pictures of the food.

That just makes me so happy.

- Did you have any sort of inspiration about, you know, the Jamaican cuisine?

- Both my parents are Jamaican.

We came to the United States 1969.

We migrated to Boston, Massachusetts.

And so, to be honest with you, I do not cook food the traditional way like Jamaicans do.

- Okay.

What's the difference?

- So, like, you know, jerk chicken, I don't cook it the traditional way.

First of all, in Jamaica, when they're making jerk chicken, they use it like it's usually cooked outside on the roadside or, you know, outside.

And they use a big drum and they usually use pimento wood which give the flavor to the jerk.

We don't have that, we don't have access to that in Nashville anyway.

And I just decided that, you know, let me see all the things that goes into making this food.

So I just do things totally different, more for most traditional way of cooking.

- Okay.

- I made up those things only because, you know, I studied the demographic in Nashville and I wanted, we're in the Deep South, people want sauce.

- Is it fair to say it's kind of like Jamaican food, but served to a Southern audience and so embellished a little bit to fit those palettes here?

- Precisely.

And it does have the same flavor as you're eating jerk chicken.

But the way the presentation, the way I prepare it is a little different.

It's a comfort food, it makes you feel so comforted.

- Ouida, thank you so much for telling us about Jamaican cuisine and sharing a bit about your journey with Jamaicaway.

It's been a pleasure.

- Thank you so very much for having me.

(upbeat music continues)