History of Caribbean Foods - taken from my book "Traditional Caribbean Cooking"

Historians claim that the Arawak, Carib, and Taino Indians were the first inhabitants of the Caribbean islands. These first inhabitants occupied the present day islands of Cuba, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St Vincent and The Grenadines and Jamaica. Their basic diet consisted of fruits and vegetables such as pawpaws, guavas, wild pineapples, yams, eddoes, dasheen and cassava. The Tainos started the process of cooking meat and fish in large clay pots. The Arawaks were the first people known to cook their meat on thin green wood strips over coals or firewood allowing the meat to be enhanced by the flavour of the wood and smoke. This method was called a barbacoa - the word we know today as barbecue.

According to historian Karl Watson the first settlers on Barbados were the Arawaks, who entered the island from the region of Guyana highlands and settled along the northern, western and southern coasts. (Watson 2007).

The Carib Indians had a similar style of cooking but they added more spice to their food with hot peppers indigenous to Trinidad and Tobago, and also lemon and lime juice to their meat and fish recipes.

Then the Europeans came via Christopher Columbus and they found that the islands (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Jamaica) had a vast amount of land space to cultivate sugar cane and rice. (The Caribbean Background 31).

The diet of the slaves consisted mostly of discarded food the slave owners considered unfit. Therefore the slaves had to be very inventive, and they blended their traditional African method of cooking with the staples found on the islands. The Africans introduced okra, saltfish, ackee, fish and crab cakes, pudding, souse and blue food (dasheen).

African men were hunters by nature, and often hunted in the forest for long periods of time. They would cook spicy wild pig, or whatever they caught at the time, over hot coals. The fishermen would bury the fish, covered with herbs and spices, in a shallow hole on the beach. They covered the hole with a bed of light coals and rocks, and this would cook the fish as if it was cooked on a open fire. This tradition was refined by the early slaves in Jamaica. The technique is known today as “jerk” cooking. The secret involves a slow cooking process. Jamaica is famous for jerk chicken and pork, but you can find jerk food all over the Caribbean.

After slavery was abolished, the Africans abandoned the plantations so the Europeans went to India and China for labour. Indian cooking culture has remained the same today with the introduction of curry powder. Indians call it kari podi, and we have come to know this pungent flavour as curry.

The Chinese introduced rice, a staple in our diet. They also introduced mustard. The early Portuguese sailors introduced the popular codfish. When you think about Caribbean fruits and fruit trees familiar names come up: orange, lime, ginger, plantains, bananas (green figs), date palms, sugar cane, green grapes, tamarinds and coconuts, but it was the early Spanish explorers who brought those plants with them.

Breadfruit is not native to the Caribbean, even though it is a staple in most islands. According to Jonathan Ali “The  humble breadfruit arrived in 1793. It made its first landfall at the region in St Vincent, and it was brought by Captain William Bligh of the HMS Bounty.” The breadfruit’s main use was for cheap and plentiful source of food for the slaves.

America is responsible for introducing beans, corn, Irish potatoes, tomatoes, squash and chilli pepper to the Caribbean.  (www.travel2thecaribbean.com)

Before pepper became a widely used ingredient in the Caribbean, it was sent to India where they cultivated it on a large scale. Therefore Caribbean cooking with its rich and creative flavours is a combination of African, Indian and Chinese cooking, along with Spanish, Portuguese, Danish and British influences. What we eat in the Caribbean islands has been influenced by the cultures of the world, but each island has added its own special style and blends of herbs and spices to their cooking technique.