Caribbean FLAVAS
Brothers Shaun and Craig Mcanuff are back with more flavourpacked recipes – but this time they are all vegan. Prudence Wade reports
SHAUN and Craig Mcanuff – the brothers behind food sensation Original Flava, with nearly 160k followers on Instagram – admit vegan dishes weren’t a huge part of their childhood dinners.
Growing up in a Caribbean household in South London, meat was very much the main event, but that’s shifted now, with the duo experimenting more with plantbased foods – and their mum has been a vegan since 2017.
Shaun says their new book – Natural Flava – is “the first step into trying to draw people into a healthier, happier diet – because most of the Afro-caribbean community are meat eating”.
He wants to show people how to strike a balance, saying: “We’re not trying to tell people to be vegans. We’re not militant, because I don’t think that’s the best way to introduce things to people. Only two or three times a week – change your diet, that’s the best way to start.”
The Caribbean diet might be meat-heavy, but the Mcanuffs found it easy to put together plantbased recipes from their culture. Growing up, “Vegetables were used in the sides – but they were flavourful sides”, explains Craig.
“It was always an eclectic range of different vegetables, rather than just Brussels sprouts.”
A big inspiration for many of the recipes is the Rastafari movement, with one section of the book dubbed ‘Ital inspired’ (a belief that food should be grown locally and unmodified). Shaun calls them one of “the pioneers of vegan, plant-based foods”. Food is spiritual for Rastas, with Shaun saying: “It’s about eating from the earth and looking after your body.”
Craig continues: “The Rastafarian movement is not just about the food – it’s about how to preserve
Mother Nature, respecting the environment a lot more. That’s why they say the earth and everything that is birthed naturally is good for you, food, remedies. They always encourage to use what’s natural, so that was really the pivoting inspiration for this book.”
Before their first book in 2019, Original Flava, the brothers made a pilgrimage to Jamaica – and it’s the plant-based food they remember the most. “The best meal I ever had was a vegan meal in Jamaica,” Craig reminisces. “It was incredible. It was different vegan dishes on one plate – stewed peas, pumpkin, slaw, curried tofu, rice and peas – all in one bowl. We’ve taken that excitement and vibrancy, and those Caribbean ingredients to what we’re doing now.”
Caribbean ingredients are certainly front and centre in the book, and the brothers could wax lyrical about them for hours – including callaloo (“like spinach”, says Shaun), ackee (“which is a fruit, but it’s eaten like a vegetable”), and, of course, plantain.
Plantain recipes run throughout the book, but you won’t just see it as a fried side dish. It’s in stews, lasagnes, desserts, hummus – there’s even a recipe for making your own plantain milk.
“We come from a Caribbean community where we’re so used to these ingredients, so we wanted to show it in a new light,” explains Craig. “Plantain’s quite a loved vegetable – delicious, it’s in the banana family, it’s sweet but still starchy. We wanted to show our community and the world how you can use different Caribbeanbased vegetables, and everyday vegetables as well, with added flavour.”
The ‘F’ word – flavour – is something both the Mcanuffs return to time and time again, but they also can’t ignore the benefits they’ve both felt from eating more plantbased meals.
Neither brother is fully vegan (although Shaun was for a year in 2017) but they’ve increasingly included more plant-based meals into their diets. Craig says they’re now, “Happier in ourselves – mentally, and energised as well”.
Shaun says the difference in their mother’s health – she became a vegan when Shaun started experimenting – is stark. “She had type two diabetes, high blood pressure, but managed to control it and eradicate it as well,” he says. “For her health, it’s done wonders. She lost so much weight, her skin’s glowing, she’s happy. She’s loving it.”
For the brothers, food has always been about family and it couldn’t be clearer in their new book, with pictures of their kids throughout (Shaun has a two-year-old son and Craig has twoyear-old twin girls).
There are three years between Shaun, the oldest, and Craig, and being business partners and siblings has its ups and downs.
Craig admits they do bicker: “Not all the time, but obviously as brothers we do. I’d say we bicker less than most, but we always turn it around in a minute or two.”
Shaun chimes in that the main thing they argue about is “what recipes we make next” – which is certainly a nice problem to have.
Natural Flava: Quick And Easy Plant-based Caribbean Recipes by Craig and Shaun Mcanuff is published by Bloomsbury, priced £22. Photography by Matt Russell