Belly FullExploring Caribbean Cuisine through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and over 100 Recipes
A delectable exploration of Caribbean cuisine through 105 recipes based on eleven staple ingredients, featuring powerful insights into the shared history of the diaspora and gorgeous photography.
Across the English-speaking Caribbean, “me belly full” can mean more than just a satisfied stomach, but a heart and soul that’s full too. In Belly Full, food writer of Trinidadian descent Lesley Enston brings us into the overlapping histories of the Caribbean islands through their rich cultures and cuisines.
Eleven staple ingredients—beans, calabaza, cassava, chayote, coconut, cornmeal, okra, plantains, rice, salted cod, and scotch bonnet peppers—hold echoes of familiarity from one island to the next, and their widespread use comes in part from the harrowing impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonialism. As Lesley delves into how history shaped each country and territory’s cuisine, she shows us what we can learn from each island (such as Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, and Cuba) and encourages us to celebrate the delicious differences.
Belly Full provides basic knowledge on choosing, storing, and preparing these ingredients as well as a mix of traditional and creative adaptations to dishes. Recipes are mostly gluten-free and plant-based and include:
- Cornmeal: Pen Mayi from Haiti and Conkies from Barbados
- Okra: Callaloo from Trinidad and Tobago and Fungee from Antigua
- Plantains: Mofongo from Puerto Rico and Tortilla de Plátano Maduro from Cuba
- Salted Cod: Ackee and Saltfish from Jamaica and Accras de Morue from Martinique
Belly Full, with its breadth of stories, recipes, and stunning photography, will leave your stomach and heart more than satisfied.
For Lesley Enston, cooking has always been a way to connect to her Caribbean roots. After growing up in Toronto, moving to Brooklyn, and spending a few years in London, she ultimately settled in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Along the way she’s consistently found herself over a stovetop, preparing the dishes her Trini mother first introduced her to, along with all her favorite foods from around the islands—and putting Scotch bonnet in just about everything. Lesley is a seasoned home cook and takes great pleasure in spreading the joy (and heat) of these flavors to her friends and loved ones by way of her famed backyard dinner parties. Better yet, Lesley’s young daughter, Desalin, now plays the role of sous-chef, enjoying the flavors her mother and grandmother cherish so deeply. You can find Lesley’s recipes in Bon Appétit, Food52, and the New York Times.
“Reading this book makes me stand up and clap for the marvel, history, and joy these dishes represent to the Caribbean diaspora and lovers of its cuisine. With Belly Full, Lesley educates us on the painful history that produced the best food in the world.”—Gregory Gourdet, James Beard Award–winning chef/founder of Kann and Sousól and author of Everyone’s Table
“With Belly Full, Lesley Enston whisks you around the Caribbean, a region of shared ingredients and differing ways of using them. I grew up in Saint. Lucia and have enjoyed a lifetime of learning the ways other nations treated the same ingredients of my youth. Lesley highlights eleven important staples of the region’s cuisine and invites you to island-hop in your own kitchen with wonderfully selected dishes. Bon app!”—Nina Compton, James Beard award–winning chef
“In this rich and inviting text, Lesley Enston shows the world that the Caribbean—a region fractured by colonialism and for too long defined by its economic role as a tourist paradise—is a place of abundance and unique culinary cultures. There is so much love and deep research in how Enston presents the commonalities and differences.”—Alicia Kennedy, author of No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating
“In Belly Fully, Lesley Enston shares the stories and flavors that have shaped her lifelong love affair with Caribbean food. From her mother’s effortless cooking style, infused with love and tradition, to her father’s culinary experiments with Trinidadian staples like curried chicken and souse, Lesley’s recipes inspire in the ways they approach, transcend, and unify cultural boundaries on page after delicious page.”—Hawa Hassan, author of In Bibi’s Kitchen
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