The cultural diversity of the Caribbean, due to the myriad of settlers to the area over the past 500 years, has resulted in an exciting and unique blend of society and cuisine. The author has collected recipes from all the differing peoples who live on the islands. By doing this, she has successfully portrayed the lives and history of the land through its cuisine. "Like its predecessors in the marvelous life and Food Series. (Life and Food in the Caribbean) owes more to curiosity about one's fellow beings than to measuring spoons and stop-watches." -- Los Angeles Times
The West Indian kitchen today, five hundred years after Columbus, is a wonderful blend of flavors and cooking styles. The islands are blessed with some of the richest soils in the world, and the different peoples who have settled there have developed a vibrant hybrid cuisine. Scottish rebels, enslaved Africans, indentured Portuguese and Chinese, and finally the East Indians-all of these brought with them their traditional foods and cooking techniques. This book takes as its framework the stratified history of the islands from the early times of European exploration to the present day. The author draws extensively on original sources, such as diaries, which describe voyages from the China Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic, and the implantation of new lives in the islands. She has collected recipes from the differing cuisines of all the peoples who live on the islands, and she portrays the way of life that has developed through the generations. She writes: "The Caribbean is an esthetic as full of emotion as a work of art. The air you breathe, the light that fills you, the myriad voices of nature and the past, the soil that provides for you-all these, wrapped together, are expressed in the kitchen."
The West Indian kitchen today, five hundred years after Columbus, is a wonderful blend of flavors and cooking styles. The islands are blessed with some of the richest soils in the world, and the different peoples who have settled there have developed a vibrant hybrid cuisine. Scottish rebels, enslaved Africans, indentured Portuguese and Chinese, and finally the East Indians-all of these brought with them their traditional foods and cooking techniques. This book takes as its framework the stratified history of the islands from the early times of European exploration to the present day. The author draws extensively on original sources, such as diaries, which describe voyages from the China Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic, and the implantation of new lives in the islands. She has collected recipes from the differing cuisines of all the peoples who live on the islands, and she portrays the way of life that has developed through the generations. She writes: "The Caribbean is an esthetic as full of emotion as a work of art. The air you breathe, the light that fills you, the myriad voices of nature and the past, the soil that provides for you-all these, wrapped together, are expressed in the kitchen."