The ‘hidden’ Caribbean
Riaz Phillips has always loved eating, but making a career in food was “sort of accidental.” He started tracing the story of Caribbean culinary culture in the U.K. in the mid-2010s. Phillips’ Jamaican grandmother, Mavis, had died, and he realized he had many questions he’d never asked her about her connection to the food of her homeland. Why was it so vital for her to cook these foods in England? And why did she make trips to the local market to buy fresh Caribbean fruit and vegetables to serve with dinner almost every day?
Many Caribbean shop owners in the U.K. were of Mavis’s generation at that time. It occurred to Phillips that he hadn’t had these conversations with his grandmother, but he could still ask them. His self-published first book, Belly Full (2017), documented the stories of more than 60 Caribbean chefs, bakers, butchers and other food shop owners in the U.K. Though he grew up regularly eating Caribbean food, the project inspired him to learn more about the region’s cuisines.
“It lit the fire for me to want to go and explore the Caribbean in more detail,” says Phillips, an award-winning writer and documentary maker who divides his time between his hometown of London and Berlin. “Through them, I had this passion to want to know more for myself. A lot of the people I spoke to in the shops spoke about how it was important for them to keep their heritage and culture alive in their family and for the next generation. I realized that, actually, I would have to play quite an active role in that for myself and my own family. It wouldn’t be something that would just magically, passively happen. If I wanted these foods and this thing to be something that existed in my family, I’d have to keep it going myself.”
In August 2022, Phillips followed Belly Full with West Winds (DK), focusing on Jamaican cuisine. Its companion, East Winds (DK), centring on recipes from the lesser-known “hidden” Caribbean, was published in October 2023. He had always intended to tell the story of Caribbean foodways in two parts, writing the books simultaneously in many ways, noting the similarities and differences between the regions as he went along.
While Phillips’ research for West Winds involved time in Jamaica, for East Winds, he took trips to Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname. For practical and experiential reasons, he usually made stops in North America. The flights were often cheaper than flying directly to the Caribbean from England. But these side trips also allowed him to experience diasporic life in places such as South and Central Florida, New York and Toronto.
“When you speak to Caribbean people, they always have family pretty much in all those places,” says Phillips. “And then that was another way of getting to know and explore the food culture and also see how it might have deviated in different diasporic places.”
In Toronto, he noticed more diversity in the Caribbean restaurant scene. “There were a lot of Chinese-caribbean restaurants, which is something very prevalent in the Caribbean but not something that exists in London. Chinese-caribbean food is a big deal to a lot of people. It’s part of people’s weekly lives. And as a result of that existing in Toronto, then elements of the mainstream are aware that that subculture exists.”
The same goes for Guyanese and Indo-trinidadian and Tobagonian spots, which are growing in London and widespread in the Greater Toronto Area. “As a result, people from Canada and Toronto are aware of Indo-caribbean culture existing, which is the point of the second book, East Winds — to raise awareness of all these subcultures of the Caribbean.”
The “hidden” Caribbean
Phillips writes about in East Winds isn’t a specific place “but rather putting a magnifying glass to the myriad cultures that have been obscured in both the Caribbean and the diaspora.”
In the U.K., as in Canada, more people have immigrated from Jamaica than any other Caribbean nation. (In Canada, Jamaica is followed by Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, and Cuba.) Tens of thousands of Jamaicans have settled in Canada over the past 60 years, most of them in Toronto. According to Statistics Canada, more than one in eight Black people living in this country have Jamaican heritage.
Doubles and roti aside, Guyanese, Trinidadian and Tobagonian foods tend to be lesser known than Jamaican specialties. To break through to the broader public, Phillips writes that many shops call themselves “Caribbean” or “West Indian” instead of specifying Guyanese or Trini.
“Over the decades, what people have come to think of as Caribbean culture is actually mostly Jamaican culture. There’s this other really diverse nature of Caribbean identity and culture that tends to get hidden or superseded by an overwhelming Jamaican force. Because, obviously, Jamaica also had this huge music wave that took over the planet with reggae music. And so, that’s come to dominate a lot of the forefront of what people think is Caribbean culture. As I mention (in East Winds), there’s so much more beyond that.”
Phillips opens East Winds with a plant-based chapter, followed by seeds and pulses, curry, seafood, nose-to-tail, flour and water, roti, preserves and juices. When he speaks with people in the U.K. and asks them to name Caribbean meals, the answers invariably involve Jamaican meat or fish dishes, such as jerk chicken and ackee and saltfish. The reality of life in the Caribbean — historically and today — is quite different. People managed to make “wonderful, amazing, flavourful dishes” out of simple vegetables.
In the Caribbean, plant-based eating goes back centuries. And in the countries where people in the Caribbean came from, such as China and India, it stretches back even further, says Phillips. He found that unearthing the histories of these foods — who brought the ingredients, knowledge and traditions, and under what circumstances — was one of the most pivotal parts of writing East Winds.
“It’s one thing for people to know that there are Indian people in the Caribbean. It’s another thing to understand why they got there and how they ended up there. When you read deeply into it, it’s not this insular history that happened in a vacuum. There’s a strong governmental overtone from places like Britain and America and Canada, who had a huge hand in playing with this human movement of people. “And so, I always like to emphasize that this isn’t in a box of Caribbean history or Black British history or Black History Month or South East Asian Month. It’s just history. It’s British history, American history, Canadian history.”
Recipes and images excerpted from East Winds: Recipes, History and Tales from the Hidden Caribbean by Riaz Phillips. Published by DK, Oct. 10, 2023. $54.
MURTANI
Serves: 2-4
❚ 2 large eggplants, tops removed
❚ 3 tomatoes
❚ 6-8 okra, topped and tailed
❚ 1/2 bell pepper of choice, deseeded and finely diced
❚ 1/2 onion, chopped
❚ 1-2 Scotch bonnet peppers, tops removed
❚ 3 garlic cloves, peeled
❚ 4 tbsp cooking oil of choice
❚ 1/2 tsp cumin seeds (optional)
❚ Salt, to taste
1. Preheat the oven to to 180C (160C fan/350f/gas 4).
2. Place the vegetables, Scotch bonnet peppers and garlic on a tray lined with foil and roast for 10-15 minutes until the skin begins to blacken and char. Remove from the oven and peel off some of the charred skin from the vegetables and Scotch bonnet peppers but leave some on for taste. Place everything in a bowl or a large pestle and mortar and mash until smooth or your desired consistency.
3. Next, in a small frying pan, heat the oil on medium-high heat and add the cumin seeds, if using. When the oil starts to sizzle (and the seeds start to turn dark brown), carefully pour the oil into the bowl of vegetable mash and gently stir. Season to taste.
4. Serve hot or warm with sada roti (the recipe is in the book). Note: If you want the choka to be less peppery and hot, deseed the Scotch bonnet peppers or feel free to omit them completely.
CORN SOUP
Serves: 6
❚ 5 tbsp cooking oil of choice
❚ 1 onion, chopped
❚ 6 garlic cloves, chopped
❚ 2 green onions, chopped
❚ 70 g (1/2 cup) cornmeal or yellow split peas, rinsed
❚ 1 red bell pepper, deseeded and chopped
❚ 1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
❚ 800 ml (3 1/2 cups) boiling water
❚ 5 corn on the cobs (ears of corn) (about 900 g/2 lb), silk and husks removed
❚ 400 ml (13.5 fl oz) can coconut milk or water
❚ 1 carrot, peeled and sliced or diced to preference
❚ 500 g (1 lb) pumpkin or sweet potato, peeled and chopped
❚ 1 plantain, peeled and chopped (optional)
❚ 1 Scotch bonnet pepper, whole
❚ Coconut Boil Dumplings (recipe follows)
For the seasoning:
❚ 5 sprigs of thyme
❚ 2 tsp vegetable bouillon or 1 vegetable stock (bouillon) cube ❚ 1 tsp sea salt
❚ 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
❚ 1/2 tsp all-purpose seasoning (optional)
1. In a large saucepan or Dutch pot, heat the oil over a mediumhigh heat. When hot, add the onion and sauté for 3 minutes before adding the garlic and spring onion.
2. Next, add the cornmeal or split peas along with the bell pepper and fresh coriander. Pour in the hot water and stir before adding all the seasoning ingredients. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 30 minutes until the split peas are soft to the touch. If you like, you can use a hand-held blender and pulse until completely smooth at this stage. If you use cornmeal, skip this pulverizing step.
3. Add the corn, coconut milk, carrot, pumpkin, plantain (if using), whole Scotch bonnet pepper and stir. Cover with a lid and cook for 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cook the dumplings following the instructions below. When the dumplings are cooked, drain the water and place them into the soup pot. Remove the thyme stems, whole scotch bonnet pepper and serve. Note: You can either boil the dumplings in a separate pot as per the instructions or you can place them gently into the soup pot. Doing the latter may mean they take slightly longer to cook — 25-30 minutes — since the soup pot is on a low heat. If so, the latter part of the cooking method will take 30-35 minutes rather than 20 minutes.
COCONUT BOIL DUMPLINGS
Makes: 7
❚ 170 g (1 1/3 cups) all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour
❚ 30 g (1 oz) desiccated coconut or coconut flour
❚ 1 tsp baking powder
❚ 1 tsp sea salt
❚ 1/2 tsp light soft brown sugar (optional)
1. Sift all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Slowly pour in 150 ml (2/3 cup) water and combine until the dough is tight and dense. If the dough is still wet to the touch, add 1 tablespoon of flour and combine. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap or cover in a bowl with a damp dish towel and leave to rest for 20-30 minutes.
2. Divide the dough into 7 roughly equal balls and roll each out into 10-12-cm (4-4 1/2-in) circles. You can cut each circle into 3 pieces either now or after cooking.
3. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil over a high heat and, when hot, add in a dash of salt and 3 dumplings. Boil for 1012 minutes. Sometime during this process, the dumplings will begin to float and some of them may start to naturally curl inward like a dog’s ear. When done, you will be able to pierce them with a fork or knife but feel some resistance. Drain and repeat with the remaining dumplings. Serve in Corn Soup (see recipe), oil down or crab and dumplings.