Restaurant: Back-A-Yard
City: Menlo Park, CA

I took my aunt, uncle, family friend, and sister out to a Jamaican restaurant after window shopping at East Palo Alto IKEA.

In addition to the jerk chicken, we had Back-A-Yard’s corn festivals. They’re also known as Jamaican fried dumplings, fried dough, cornbread fritters, or fried cornbread. In Jamaica, they’re simply known as festival. They’re best eaten right after it’s made, while still hot.

Here’s a closer look at the festival:

Recipes can be found throughout the internet, and it looks like the primary ingredients are cornmeal, all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and oil.

Here’s what others have said about festivals. This one’s from Virginia Burke on Leite’s Culinaria:

Slightly sweet and very moreish fried dumplings, called festival, from Jamaica, these are traditionally served with jerk meats.

And from Marcia Kiesel at Food & Wine:

According to legend these light Jamaican corn bread fritters got their name because eating them is fun—like a festival.