Travel Books Review....

Life and Food in the Caribbean by Christine Mackie

(New Amsterdam Books, paperback, 188 pages, recipes, index, B&W illustrations, $11.95, ISBN 1-56131-029-8)

This is a book that makes you hungry...for Caribbean cookin' and Caribbean livin'. If you can't catch the next flight to the islands, turn on some reggae, heat up your oven, and start reading.

Life and Food in the Caribbean, part of a fascinating series from New Amsterdam Books, is a travel and history guide, a cookbook, and a tasty read. From the first page, you can tell Christine Mackie has been to the Caribbean often, mixed with the locals, and broken bread with them. She says, "I was born at a time when air fares to the Caribbean have been reasonable enough to enable me to go many times during the last twenty years, even living there for months at a time."

Her time there shows. This book is as much about Caribbean history and culture as it is about food. But that's because, as Mackie shows, that everything is intermixed.

The recipes, woven wondrously into the text, include Cassava, Lamb in Sugar-Cane Brandy, West Indian Pudding, Jamaica Patties, and dozens more. Here's a typical tasty and casually written recipe:

For Grenada Pepperpot for six to eight people you may use any amount of different meats but do not use onions or garlic, the locals say, 'for it will turn sour'. I did, but froze the finished dish successfully. Upon reheating, there seemed to be no change and it was almost as good. I put 750 g (1 1/2 lbs) of silver side of beef, 1 pig's trotter and a hock, and 1 kg (2 lbs) of oxtail into a large pot. I marinaded this in 125-150 ml (4-5 fl oz) of cassareep overnight. The next morning I added a rough piece of cinnamon bark of 2.5 cm (1 inch) in length, a tablespoon of brown demerara sugar, 6 cloves, 2 bay or pimento or clove leaves, 1 hot pepper, 500 g (1 lb) of finely chopped mild onion and a head of garlic cut horizontally in two. I covered this with 1.2 l (2 pints) of cold water and brought it to a boil, then let it simmer for two and a half hours. I felt that the cassareep I was given smelt and tasted suspiciously like molasses; it is more than likely you could achieve something similar using half the amount of molasses.

Bon appetit, mon!