Caribbean flavour...
| Date | 03 July 2021 |
| Published date | 03 July 2021 |
| Publication title | Coventry Telegraph |
Vanessa grew up on French Caribbean islands Guadeloupe and Martinique. , and it was her father who taught her crustacean husbandry; in the weeks before easter they'd farm crates of live crabs in preparation for dishes of crab callaloo and crab matete (spicy rice with crabmeat).
"We'd feed them not only chillies, but spring onions, garlic, thyme, and the flesh is different.
"It's slightly softer. It's tasty. You do feel the difference. It's the same way if you feed your animals organic, beautiful grass, or you feed them grain - it won't taste the same," says Vanessa.
Having been based in London for the last 16 years, her cookbook - Sunshine Kitchen - came from not being able to find the regional variety of Caribbean food in Britain that she was raised eating.
"There are myriad cookery books, where you can learn about food from the north or south of Italy, and that's just one country," says Vanessa, 37. But when it comes to Caribbean food, "generally everything is lumped together", she adds. Often the assumption is that it's "food that actually originates from Jamaica".
That homogenisation, she says, is partly down to migration.
"The people that migrated to the UK were people of Jamaican origin, in majority," she explains, whereas in France, for instance, migration from French Caribbean islands has been more common.
"The food I'm talking about is the food people know; no one knows what jerk chicken is in France. No one knows what ackee is. Some of the ingredients and spices, they're the same, but the application of them is completely different."
Factor in access to funds and how difficult the restaurant industry can be anyway, and showcasing regional varieties gets even tougher.
"Being able to educate people into coming to a restaurant to eat food that's quite unfamiliar, requires the ability to sustain the business long enough for people to come and see and try it," says Vanessa. However, street food traders and supper clubs are helping move things forward.
Sunshine Kitchen shares her version of Creole Caribbean food; one that draws on the way her parents and grandparents cooked, - traditional dishes from Guadeloupe and Martinique. , with a few contemporary angles and tweaks that reflect her own style.
Vanessa describes Guadeloupe and Martinique. in one gleeful word: "Paradise!"
Defining Caribbean Creole...
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