“The Caribbean isn’t this uniform thing – it’s a really diverse region,” Phillips emphasises.
The Caribbean food scene in the UK is akin to a private members’ club. Invite-only. Unless you run in certain circles, you might not know much about it. Family recipes, the best butchers, where to buy a quality Dutch pot, how to make the perfect dhal puri roti… The community is powered by word of mouth, not to mention the sheer breadth of culture emanating from the islands, each of which is unique. Put simply, it can be intimidating for an outsider.
Naturally, as a Brit with Trinidadian heritage myself, I was excited to learn more about the book. So, on a mild Tuesday afternoon, I took the Victoria line down to, where Phillips had suggested we meet.
Still, there’s definitely no substitute for being in the Caribbean. If I wanted to see somebody making roti, I didn’t research where to go and watch that. I waited until I got there, then started talking to people and asking questions. The Caribbean is great; everyone knows someone who knows someone who can help you out. I was told stories about what food their parents would make when they were younger, where they got their ingredients from… Often, I didn’t even have to ask questions.
I spent a lot of time in New York and Toronto, too. It was cool to see the intersection between Caribbean culture and city life there; there’s a lot of parallels to London. When you’re in Queens in New York or Scarborough in Toronto, it feels like you could be in Seven Sisters or Brixton. There’s the West African communities, the Indian communities, the Caribbean communities… But the Trinidadian and Guyanese populations are proportionately much bigger [than in London].
At one point, though, I realised I didn’t actually know how to cook a lot of the stuff myself. I’d just been enjoying eating it for so long, and I was never really pressured to get into the kitchen in the same way my female cousins were. I couldn’t live with myself not knowing, so I started to learn the recipes, and things grew from there.
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