Contemporary Caribbean cuisine
Bringing traditional island dishes to a new level of sophistication
Maura Curley
It's about much more than just cooking with local fruits and roots.
Savvy chefs, inspired by native dishes, are employing classic culinary techniques to take Caribbean cooking to a whole new level of sophistication.
Contemporary Caribbean cuisine isn’t as well known as Italian French or Mexican. But if devotees and culinary trendsetters like Bill Moore have their way, it will i become part of the world wide culinary encyclopedia.
Moore, an Australian citizen, educated in England and France, and a seasoned culinary professional, who helped found the Caribbean Culinary Federation and organize the Taste of the Caribbeancompetition among Caribbean chefs, believes people are starting to appreciate a cuisine that some still have difficulty describing.
“It’s not necessarily about using the rich market basket of the Caribbean,” he says “It’s about taking classic dishes, and imploding them and then putting them back together."
Moore, who has lived in the Caribbean for 26 years, and now serves as director of product development at Round Hill Resort in Jamaica, cites Caribbean “ fish soup” as an example. he says " It's made from fish eyeballs, fish heads, and taste great, but may not have mass appeal".
The “New Caribbean cuisine’s” version, he explains with relish, embraces all the elements of fish soup, executed with classic culinary techniques.
A new version, which has worked in Jamaica includes rich fish stock and island herbs, incorporated into layers of scallops, oysters, and vegetables poached in fish stock, and sprinkled with bammy chips.
Moore menions oxtail, another favorite, with bones and white beans. It has been modified for an upscale market, by cooking the oxtail, stripping it out and tucking it into fresh ravioli. It's served with a casoulet of white beans with Jamaican Appleton rum at Round Hill Resort.
"We don’t want to apologize for our cuisine,” he observes, while noting some dishes are hard to swallow, if you haven’t grown up on them.
He says "Deconstructing and rebuilding elements, presents Caribbean dishes in a sustainable way. The result is fine dining ala Manhattan or ala London, but truly Caribbean.”
“It’s all starting to coalesce," he says, adding that in Jamaica, the Culinary Federation is working closely with the Jamaica Tourist Board to promote the concept.
But Moore, a true pioneer, is not content to just let his cuisine simmer. He passionately believes contemporary Caribbean cuisine is as distinctive and should be admired as much as French cooking.
He wants to fuse it into the global consciousness, and believes educating emerging chefs is the tipping point.
Moore plans to complete a Contemporary Caribbean Cuisine textbook. He envisions a “teaching text,” which will be come part of the curriculum in every hotel school.
He says, “ If you write the text book you define the cuisine."
Photo: Bill Moore at Taste of the Caribbean in San Juan in June 2009
virginvoices.com photo by D.B. Bostdorf
Maura Curley, a former restaurant critic, writes frequently about food.
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Click Here to Add a Comment" Wow, I want to try the Oxtail ravioli!" - Shantal Hodge (2009-11-11)