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The Caribbean is home to many people, including the more recent Chinese and East Indians descendants.  These people left a lasting imprint, contributing distinctive hybrid cuisines; exponentially (and I hate to use this term),  each cuisine has influenced the others, giving rise to several micro “regional” cuisines that is still young and evolving. 

What’s  old  is new;   The  past  provides  a  vast  country  to  explore  and  fertile  terrain  for gastro-tourism. 

In 1834 the black British slaves working in the Caribbean colonies were freed, creating a labor vacuum that was filled by indentured laborers from India and China. From 1838 to 1917, over half a million Indians from the former  British India, and thousands of Chinese were brought to the Caribbean as indentured servants to work the plantations.   The influence of these people resulted in two unique styles of cooking—Indo-Caribbean and Caribbean Chinese.  Both styles are a fusion of the   cuisine   of   the   specific  Caribbean  nation.  

 Traditional East Indian, Chinese and Caribbean foods are made to mingle. 

charged sauces and the Chinese sweet and sour flavors.  And the love for hot chili peppers are common amongst traditional West Indian, Chinese and East Indian cultures.A culinary evolution—Authentic East Indian dishes and recipes brought to these Islands over a hundred years ago, gradually evolved with the continual addition and subtraction of ingredient into drastically different, deliciously innovative dishes we enjoy today.  The East Indian influence can be seen throughout the Caribbean; evidence is that curry is a main stay around these Islands.  Hot curry stewpots of beef, poultry, game, goat, and lamb is ubiquitous in the Caribbean.

Other Common Indo-Caribbean specialties include: 

• Pungent dry spice blends—Curries, masala, Colombo, specialty seasoning for fried fish, pork, stews, and poultry.   

• Chana Dal—Spicy lentils cookups and fritters.

• Breads—Roti, fried bakes, and doubles.

• Poori—A corruption of the traditional deep-fried puffy bread) but made with lentil, flower, spices as small ball sized appetizers.

• Pilau Rice—A very popular, more downtown version of the classic opulent rice dish byriani. Pilau is made with long grain rice, protein (chicken with pork the most popular), nuts (cashew), dried fruits and yes tropical east Indian spices--turmeric, cumin, cilantro, chili peppers, etc.

• Roti—An adaptation of the East Indian roti flat bread remade into a all in one meal. Roti is a traditional dish made by women for their husbands lunch meal when they worked away from home on the plantation fields. It is a handmade flat bread made with dal paste, gee and lots of elbow grease; The bread is wraped around a savory, curried stew of seafood, goat, lamb, chicken, beef, pork or vegetables.  A hardy meal wrapped up in an East Indian inspired, tasty, flaky flat bread.  Roti meals are filled with every imaginable curried-stewed goodness filling—conch, goat, duck, vegetables, poultry, beef, pork. 

• Bus-up-shot—An open-face style roti meal made with a flacky tornup roti skin that resembles a burst open shirt, or a shirt that was shot up. 

• Masala—A sophisticated, authentic-traditional East Indian inspired spice combination; It  gives each dish its distinctive taste.  Unlike curry (a store bought commercial masala of sorts), each East Indian recipe calls for a different combination of spices (masala) to give flavor-character to the dish. Masala range from a few harmonizing spices to several contrasting herbs and spices.  Common spices used to make masala includes cinnamon, clove, mustard seeds, fenugreek, mace, nutmeg, turmeric, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, ginger.  Turmeric is generally  used as a medium to add color and base.   Chef Rose hand blends different masalas, creating distinct indo-Caribbean flavors.        

Adding to this complex amalgam is the Chinese talented way of harmonizing contrasting flavors—sweet, sour, bitter, spicy and salty—and cleverly blending textures—chunky, crispy, crunchy, chewy, creamy. The Chinese introduced the quick cooking method to the Caribbean and also the attention to detail; making food more appealing to the eye with uniform cuts and color contrast; and ability to make tasty sauces within minutes. 

The Chinese also introduced: 

• Soy (regular and the popular black mushroom soy).

• Five-Spice powder (equal parts of cinnamon, cloves, fennel seed, star anise and Szechwan peppercorns.)

• Noodles of all sorts—Noodles arriving latter on became a big hit with Chinese Caribbean chow mein of all sorts; jerk pork chow mein very popular in Jamaica; vegetable and chicken chow mein with Chinese sausage is an unofficial national dish of Guyana (pepperpot is their national dish and the predecessor to the more popular Callaloo soup).    

• Stir frying—The high heat, quick cooking method; noodle, rice, and vegetable stir-fry—excellent for today time constraint society. 

• BBQ—Not the cooking technique, but sweet sour sauces of all sorts; Namely Peking style duck, Chinese 5 spiced bbq pork and sausages used in noodle stir-frys.  

East meets the West Indies on Indo-Caribbean nights at Sweet Plantains Restaurant--Friday and Saturday.   

© 2009 Prince Adams

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