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Jamaica
Jerk is the grammar here: allspice, scotch bonnet, thyme, and pimento smoke. Ackee and saltfish for breakfast, curry goat for a wake, a patty in a paper bag on the way to work. Nobody eats quietly.
On our range: Jerk Chicken, Curry Goat, Lamb & Butter Bean, Cheesy Beef, Jerk Salmon, Pepper Prawn, Mango Mackerel, Steamed Fish & Okra, The Mushy D, Ackee & Kale
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Trinidad & Tobago
Callaloo, doubles, roti, and a scotch-bonnet heat that arrives a beat late. African, Indian, Chinese and Spanish cooking all ended up in the same pot here, and the pot is better for it.
On our range: Okra & Callaloo, Coconut Chickpea
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Haiti
Griot, pork braised soft, then fried hard, with pikliz, a scotch-bonnet slaw that cuts straight through the fat. Bold, sour, generous, and never shy with the pepper.
On our range: not yet
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Grenada
Oil down: breadfruit, salted meat and coconut milk cooked down in one pot until the milk has gone. The spice isle cooks like it means it.
On our range: not yet
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Barbados
Cou-cou and flying fish, cornmeal and okra stirred smooth and slow, pepper sauce over the top. Friday is pudding and souse, and everyone has a view on whose is right.
On our range: not yet
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Guyana
Pepperpot that simmers for days, dal puri, seven curry. Indo-Caribbean to its bones, where the heat is warm rather than a dare.
On our range: not yet
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St. Lucia
Green fig and saltfish: green banana boiled firm, then tossed with salted cod, peppers and onion. Sounds like nothing on paper; tastes like the island.
On our range: not yet
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Dominican Republic
Sancocho, seven meats and every root in the ground, still on the stove at four o’clock. La bandera, rice and beans with stewed meat, is the flag you eat daily.
On our range: not yet
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Cuba
Ropa vieja: beef cooked until it gives up and shreds itself into tomato and pepper sofrito. Slow, thrifty, and better on the second day.
On our range: not yet
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Bahamas
Conch, cracked and fried or sliced raw with lime in a conch salad. Island cooking that barely needs a kitchen to be right.
On our range: not yet
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Antigua & Barbuda
Fungee and pepperpot, cornmeal and okra stirred firm and turned out, next to a dark, peppery pot of greens and salted meat.
On our range: not yet
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St. Kitts & Nevis
Goat water: goat stewed down with cloves and flour dumplings until it’s thick enough to stand a spoon in. Every family claims the best one, and they are all correct.
On our range: not yet
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St. Vincent
Roasted breadfruit, blackened over open fire, split, eaten with salted fish, and fried jack. Breadfruit travels; Vincentians worked that out first.
On our range: not yet
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Dominica
Callaloo soup and ground provisions: dasheen, yam and plantain boiled together in one pot. The nature isle eats straight from the ground it is named for.
On our range: not yet
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Suriname
Pom, chicken and taro baked into a golden slab, on the same table as Javanese noodles, Hindustani roti and Creole rice. Nowhere else quite like it.
On our range: not yet
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Turks & Caicos
Conch, again, because there is no arguing with it: split, pounded, fried, with peas and rice alongside.
On our range: not yet
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Bermuda
Fish chowder sharpened with black rum and sherry peppers, sweet potato alongside. A British-Caribbean thing that only really works there.
On our range: not yet
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Belize
Rice and beans with stewed chicken, the same dish, done differently in every house, and hudut down the coast, fish swimming in coconut.
On our range: not yet
