M & J Jamaican

Title photo: Mango Jerk Chicken. Photograph by Eric Tadsen.

“Life is just life. You live it how you want it.”

Donnet Joseph brings the spirit of those words to M & J Jamaican, where she hopes diners will slow down and appreciate what’s right in front of them. From the colors of the Jamaican flag to original artwork by her husband, Jean, Donnet says, “We got a positive vibration here. Cool vibes. Jamaican vibes.”

The experience crescendos with the food. It might give you a kick, but it’ll make you feel good. Still, the thought of that kick makes some people hesitate. Donnet enjoys changing their minds. “People have the wrong concept of Jamaican food. They think it’s all about the heat. But I always tell people, it’s not about the heat; it’s the flavor.”

When done right, Donnet believes spices complement food, not the other way around. She personally crafts nearly all of the seasonings to pick up on the notes she wants in each dish, using spices sourced from Jamaica to maintain a strong sense of place. Combining tradition with her own knowledge, she brings that same balance to her jerk sauces, echoing methods reaching back to the origins of jerk.

Long before modern refrigeration, Jamaica’s Indigenous Taíno preserved meat through smoking methods. Centuries later, self-liberated Maroon communities built on those techniques, developing the layers of seasoning by incorporating their own African traditions. “They build all these flavors and put it on to cure the meat,” says Donnet. “Making sure it’s flavorful, but it’s not spoiling.”

Donnet finds that when she shares the history of Jamaican cooking with customers, they appreciate the food more. As for herself, that appreciation runs deep. Growing up in Jamaica, many of those same resourceful traditions were part of her daily life.

For example, Donnet recalls her family having an iron that was used by inserting coals into it. Her father would open the middle of the iron, exposing the coals, and put a pot on top to cook food. Since they didn’t have refrigeration, if he made chicken, Donnet and her siblings would go to bed looking forward to finishing the dumpling-wrapped leftovers the next morning.

There wasn’t resentment—not even a little. It was simply life. “It makes you appreciate a lot of things,” says Donnet. “We’ve been cooking since we were seven years old. My mom instilled in us as kids that we should learn to do our own thing. She always told my brothers, ‘Don’t depend on a wife. Learn to cook your own food and wash your own clothes.’”

Those lessons followed Donnet when she moved to Madison…in January 1991. “It was a little different adapting to the culture here,” she says. “I remember my first job working in Sun Prairie at Hardee’s. It was snowing one day. They looked at me, and they were like, ‘You gotta take the shovel and go shovel the sidewalk.’

“I was like, ‘What? What is that?’ I come from a tropical country. I don’t know nothing about shoveling no snow. They thought I was just making funny.”

Feeling homesick, Donnet had days where she’d look outside at the snow and cry. She’d call her dad and tell him that she wanted to go home. But her dad wasn’t the type of person to accept “I can’t do this” as a reason to give up. He told her, “If you’re climbing a mountain and you fall off, you get up. You don’t stay down and mourn. You get up, and you go back up the mountain because each time you go, you’re going to go higher until you reach the top.”

Donnet says, “I live by those philosophies.” She remained in Madison, and after ending her pursuit of a degree in social work, she worked at Olive Garden and Applebee’s before finding a career at Webcrafters that lasted 27 years. Over that time, whether at work or not, she absorbed as much knowledge as she could, using it to solve problems in the moment and applying what she learned to other aspects of her life. She was also reshaping her self-doubt into motivation. When it came time for her to open her food cart, she’d developed a philosophy of her own: I got this.

Everything came together when Martin Deacon, founder of Jamerica, was ready to retire. He reached out to Donnet to see if she wanted to buy his food cart. “He was like, ‘I know you can cook,’” says Donnet. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll buy the food cart.’” Three years later, she was on the brink of opening M & J Jamaican’s brick-and-mortar location.

All the while, her family was in her corner. She’d get texts from nephews saying they’d seen her online and phone calls from relatives telling her how proud they were. She was especially close to her cousin Evelyn, whose words open this story. The two talked about celebrating, whether in Madison or at the new home Evelyn was building in Jamaica, once M & J Jamaican opened.

One Friday night before close, when Donnet was prepping chicken by the sink, she received a phone call from one of her other cousins. “She was like, ‘I don’t know how to say this. Evelyn is gone.’ Oh my God, I just dropped the phone and started screaming.”

It’s a moment in Donnet’s life she carries alongside her father’s wisdom. Where he once said, “Tomorrow speaks for its ownself,” she adds, “Tomorrow ain’t promised to anybody.”

Parts of that perspective weave into the kitchen at M & J Jamaican. From the mango jerk chicken to the curry coconut tofu to the cabbage, Donnet isn’t asking if you like the food you had before; she’s asking if you like the food in front of you right now. More often than not, diners walk away discovering something new about their own tastes. Martin keeps in touch with Donnet, telling her, “I’m proud of you. People talk so much about your food, and I’m happy somebody else was there to carry on that Jamaican food.”

Donnet hopes to share those roots with her grandchildren soon, taking them to Jamaica to see where she grew up and understand the traditions that shaped her. And her grandchildren already feel connected to what she’s built. When Donnet asked her 12-year-old granddaughter what she would do if something happened to Grandma, she matter-of-factly answered, “I’ll take over the restaurant.”

M & J Jamaican
4692 Cottage Grove Road
Madison, WI 53716
(608) 230-5302
facebook.com/mjjamaicank