I have been admiring Levi Roots’ latest book
Food for Friends: 100 Simple Dishes for Every Occasion for a while now. It came out in August and I have been browsing through it at the supermarket. It’s a glossy publication done in the contemporary ‘Nigella style’ of cookbook, with lots and lots of photographs of Levi and with the dishes that’s he’s cooked. The theme of this cookbook is the spicing up everyday (British) dishes to make them feel a bit more Caribbean. I love Levi’s back-story - he was the dragon slayer on the Dragons’ Den TV programme who won the funding to develop a hot spicy sauce range known as Reggae Reggae Sauces, and they have become phenomenally popular and are probably on a supermarket shelf near you. It’s just that for me the issue with this book is that I just don’t feel the need for a Jamaican style pizza or a sweet potato shepherds’ pie in my kitchen or on my dinner table. It just feels like a bit too much of an unnecessary multi-cultural mash-up to me.
If you really want to understand Caribbean food and cookery, I would recommend anything that you can find by Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz, whose love of good food began in Jamaica when her family moved there when she was 8 years old in about 1923. She died in 2003, I think that her books are now out of print – but I am sure it is possible to find them, it would be well worth the hunt. For something a bit more up to date, I would also recommend a book by Levi Roots’ contemporary Patrick Williams, who was also inspired by his Jamaican mother. Patrick, who you might catch now and again on the Saturday morning TV cooking programmes, has a book is called The Caribbean Cook (2001) and it is a straightforward cookbook with some delightful recipes that West Indians really do cook and eat at home. Alternatively you could just pop into Patrick’s restaurant The Terrace when you are next passing through Lincolns’ Inn Fields, London – The Terrace.
The cookbook that I brought earlier this year and would like to celebrate here, is a true reflection of multi-cultural London, The Arnold Circus Centenary Cookbook. It is a collection of recipes from people who live and work around London’s first social (council) housing estate, The Boundary Estate and has just celebrated its 100th birthday. Arnold Circus is the bandstand that stands at the centre of the redbrick housing blocks that radiate out from it rather like spokes on a wheel. Over the years it has been the focus of much devotion and hard work to turn it in to a positive space that everyone can enjoy. It all came together this past summer, when the bandstand and garden re-opened after more than a year’s closure and £600,000 worth of refurbishment. The cookbook is made up of recipes that people who live in the area sent in to The Friends of Arnold Circus group that organised both the refurbishment and the cookbook. There are one hundred recipes split into 4 sections – Starters and Spices, Mains, Puddings & Sweet Things and Drinks & Misc.
The recipes represent this corner of east London in all its wonderful and diverse variety. Soups from Morocco and Armenia, Sweet and sour sauce from Shanghai, all kinds of curries and delicacies from all over Bangladesh, cockney staples such as bubble and squeak; Irish soda bread, Greek Tzadziki and Russian Borscht. Other places represented include Japan, Somalia, Goa, and the US. The recipes are interspersed with stories and pictures about food from residents old and young, some just arrived, others who have always lived here. It gives a sense of the history of the East End of London, with stories and recipes that hark back to the Jewish identity of the area, and there is even one recipe, written to start with in French, that is a reminder of the17th century Huguenot presence. The dominant presence now is of the Bengalis, and their South Asian cuisine that this part of east London, with its curry lane, is now most famous. There is also a sense of the economic breadth of the district, with recipes like [Recipe no. 43] Peanut Butter & Crisp Sandwich only few pages up from [Recipe no. 40] Roast Poussin with Artichoke Hearts.
My favourite quote in the book is about lunch [Recipe no. 19] by Nabila Kabeer'… having a sandwich or a salad may fill me up but it won’t cheer me up. I need a cooked meal for that.'
Of course, given the nature and themes of this blog, I have chosen to feature the recipes and stories that come from the West Indies. Before I focus on those, I would like to point out this lovely little story about Camel and Maize [Recipe no 49], which a very popular dish in Somalia, where the writer Hilib, explains that it takes a long time to cook camel meat. I have been following the cooking adventures of a neighbour on her blog all summer and been particularly struck by her gastronomic love affair with camels and so I do now understand that it is a revered delicacy in parts of the world where camels are easily found. Just thought that I would share: Camel recipes.
[Recipe no. 41] Story from Kathleen
I grew up in St Lucia during the war. Till I came here, I didn’t understand what is ‘poor’. Back home everyone has a little land – a cow, a sheep, a pig, or a goat - so when someone kill an animal they share it with the neighbours. My mum used to cook fish all the time, catch it in a river basket. Sometimes the conger eel, slit it belly, put in the pot to boil with salt and spice, eat it up like soup, or anytime, a snack. I got family here and back in St Lucia. I miss it there, but I’m at home here, and here in London it’s more … alive!
[Recipe no. 73] Fruitcake by Anne
In 1955 when I came here form St Lucia, there was no West Indian food here. There was a Jewish man in Burdett Road who would get us garlic, and black or red beans, and I used to go down to Brixton to get West Indian foods, take 2 trains and to Brixton, 6 o’clock Saturday morning. My mum would post me a big tin of cooking butter and I would share it with my friends. Sometimes we would team up with friends to go to Billingsgate and get Mackeral…
I would keep the dried fruit in a big old glass sweetie jar, then when I was making fruitcake I would soak it all in some wine and brandy, overnight, or at least a few hours.
Cream together 1lb butter and 1lb sugar, add 6-8 eggs, beaten, (depends on the size of the eggs). Add some essence, almond, or vanilla. Then you stir in 1lb self raising flour, then the fruit. You line your tin with greaseproof paper, bake the cake for an hour or an hour and a half, at gas mark 4. Don’t open the door before an hour is up!
I just totally loved those stories about West Indian food and longing in London. Unfortunately I failed to complete the paperwork to get my chosen recipe included in the cookbook, but I would have sent in Bill Granger’s Coconut Bread (from his first book Sydney Food) if I had remembered. This is a bread that is eaten with Jamaican Saltfish Relish he says, but in Sydney they eat it as a breakfast cake. Actually I cannot imagine that any self respecting Jamaican would spoil either their Saltfish or a fine coconut cake by eating them together, the thought of it makes my mouse fur up. With fried plaintain or Johnny cakes (fried dumplings) - most definitely, but not a cake, that must most definitely be a Sydney thing; but I do love the multi-cultural fusion of this cake travelling around the world and being loved and enjoyed so far away from where it began. I have been cooking the Coconut Bread recipe for over 10 years now and have shared it with friends in Italy and Brazil. It's wonderful with with melted chocolate.
[Recipe no. 63] West Indian Potato and Prawn Curry by Beverley Green
No idea where Beverly Green or her family are from, but I enjoyed cooking her West Indian curry and loved eating it even more! I hope that you enjoy the pictures. You can get The Arnold Circus Centenary Cookbook from Leila’s Shop – it is £2.00 and that includes postage and packing – it’s an absolute bargain. You will love it.
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Encona's Hot Pepper Sauce in a bottle, instead of
a fresh Scotch bonnet pepper |
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| And there is garlic - forgot it in the previous picture |
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| Used groundnut oil; my mother would have used a corn oil like Mazola |
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| Boil the potatoes |
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| Gently fry the onions, garlic and ginger |
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Add the seasoning; I used Dunn's Caribbean Everyday Seasoning
which is a mixture of salt, paprika, coriander, chilli,
onion, garlic and few other things |
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| Add the green peppers |
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| Add the potatoes |
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Add the tinned tomatoes and the hot pepper sauce, I also added a
tin and a half of water at this point |
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| Leave to simmer, I left if for about 30 minutes |
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| And it ends up looking like this |
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Add the prawns and coriander - I left the tails on the prawns as
I thought that looked prettier |
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| Serve with plain boiled rice |
