Caribbean Books

The other day I went through my cookbooks, to see if I could weed some out, because I have too many to mention. It's hard getting rid of a cookbook, especially one with a few recipes in it that you've come to love. But I've scanned the recipes I need to keep forever into my MacBook. However, there were an even dozen I couldn't part with. These are books I turn to time and time again, even though I consider myself somewhat of a gourmet chef.

BAHAMA MAMA'S was one of the one's I kept because over the last couple years I've found myself going to it time and again. I make "Mama's Best Gingerbread" all the time. Like most of the recipes in this book, it's easy and impossible to screw up and it tastes delicious. For a quick and good gumbo I've done the "Crawfish Gumbo" on page 59 and like it a lot. True, I consider myself somewhat of a gourmet, but I don't always have the time to spend in the kitchen I'd like, so sometimes it's nice to have a recipe book on hand that you can count on for tasty and authentic meals.

I've served the "Stuffed Tomatoes" here so often that I know the recipe by heart and I've found they go very well with the "Whiskey Chicken on page 105, which is just about my hubby's favorite meal. This is a terrific cookbook and I think you'll find if you use it for any length of time, you too will be cooking like a Bahama Mama.

Peter Barratt's Bahama Saga: The Epic Story of the Bahama Islands lives up to its title. The epic is a sensuous sweep of Bahamian history, a vivid result of his love affair with the Islands. From the first chapter, when humans set foot in the Americas, to the last chapter, when the flag of Independence lifts into the Bahamian sky, Barratt's epic is richly textured with historical detail and human motivation.
"Saga" is a wonderful cross-genre, a blurring of distinctions between genres as with opera and straight play. Barratt's cast of fictional personalities plays against the backdrop of exciting episodes in Bahamian history complete with their choruses of fated Lucayans, lustful Spaniards, adventurous Bermudians, bold pirates, enslaved Africans, exiled Loyalists, thirsty rum-runners, sun-worshipping tourists.
The book is structured in two parts. In Part I, the Lucayans discover and colonize the Bahamas; Columbus and the Conquistadors re-discover and de-populate the Bahamas. Part II follows the major waves of re-colonization by the Eleutheran Adventurers, African Slaves and American Loyalists; the book closes with chapters on Emancipation and the political/economic development of the Bahamas.
The author uses an informal voice, even for the historical narration. In true "saga" fashion, asides and digressions abound to enlighten and amuse. In much the style of classic epics or 18th century English novels, Barratt's historical and fictional narratives mix and mingle as he traces two families of different races down through the centuries until they merge at the end.
Barratt creates the story of Tsgot, the first explorer to discover the Bahama Islands. Tsgot's ancestors were the Asians who crossed the land bridge to discover and settle the continents of North and South America and later the major islands of the Caribbean. Once colonization of the Bahamas began and trade was established, other Lucayan adventurers set out in their dugout canoes to explore more islands. In his depiction of this Lucayan odyssey, Barratt evokes magical images with sumptuous descriptions of the pristine islands and a thesaurus of colors to paint the water. As he introduces each island discovered, he forecasts the role those islands will play to future visitors as the centuries move on. One island, Grand Bahama, is significant in that today The Lucayan National Park, founded by the author, preserves a 40-acre portion of the "golden isle" first enjoyed by the Lucayans as their canoes rode the "crystal clear waters" of the "fast-moving creek ... arched over with vegetation," which was for them and for us "a magical journey."

Very informative book regarding social culture of the past. Puts society into a time perspective.

I read this book one afternoon in the Queen's Park Savannah, Port of Spain. I was trying to have a quick glimpse on what Trinidad was about. Lawrence Scott brought me into a journey of personal experiences reflected into others. From that moment on many of my own personal experiences of Trinidad flashes back into this book. Highly recomended. Marcos Barinas

Is a nice instrutive book. Es un libro muy bueno escrito en Español. Es una denuncia a Castro. Podemos ver cuanto pasan los balseros cubanos para cruzar el mar. Es una historia real muy bonita. Se las recomiendo.

This book is well researched and very informative. A few of the essays were a little boring to me but the rest more than make up for it. My favorites were by Cindy Forster, Steve Striffler and the conclusion essay (who I forget already the writer) are excellent. These essays give you a look at not only the industry but the people involved and how a single funny fruit has shaped many peoples' way of life. This book is also interesting for the history about how a corporation can care for nothing but money and short change people, their governments and the environment as a way of doing profitable business. I gained a lot of information on how corporations as businessmen do not make wise farmers. I learned quite a bit else but I'll just say I recommend starting with Striffler's essay because it reads as a really good story.

As a nation at war with a country we don't understand, we all need to read this book as well as Mr. Langley's other book "Banana Men". Forget your political ideology and read a well documented account of how the United states tries to shape Central America in their own image, gets bored with it and spawns the conflicts in the 1980s. Mr. Langley gives a quick paced vivid account of the intervention in Central America and the Caribbean. He tells the story of some of the most flamboyant characters in American history. From Chesty Puller stopping a riot by jumping on a crate with his Thompson machine guns blazing to the last words of the diplomat in Haiti asking why the Haitians wanted the Americans out. The Haitian official's statement was to the effect of "Yes, our country is a mess, but it's our mess, Please leave".

Read this book it will give you a great perspective about good intentions and how they can go wrong when you don't understand the people you are trying to "help". Could go a long way in understanding our current intervention.

This book is a collection of scholarly essays on the subject of historical piracy the world over. It's divided into two sections, "Situating Piracy" and "Pirates in Action."

Essays in the first section are more general/historical, discussing piracy in general as a career, its effects on local economies and politics, its role in warfare and trade. Personally I didn't much care for this section, largely because I'm more of a scholar of the story of the individual and i already have a pretty good working grasp of how piracy related to these other areas of societal structure. I imagine though that if you are relatively new to piratical research this section would be very handy in getting a grasp on this sort of background and "worldview" perspective.

The second section focuses more on specific pirates/crews/ships/cultures, and spans a wide range of topics, from Cheng I Sao's Chinese pirate fleet, to minorities in piracy (gays, blacks, women, etc), to the little-known pirate culture of the Adriatic Uskoks. This section I found to be completely engrossing and wonderfully rich with research and detail, on subjects one rarely sees explored in depth (though perhaps moreso of late as piracy scholarship becomes wider-known and more popular as a subject of academic research).

There's a section of illustration plates in the center of the book, comprised of various historical/period woodcuts, engravings, maps, portraits, diagrams, and other media, including a facinating diagram of the "genealogy" of pirate crews in the golden age of piracy--apparently all pirate crews at the time could be traced through the training of the captains, who sprang off from whose crews to man their own ships, which all originated with two "paterfamilias" pirate captains, Hornigold and Low.

I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in piratical research!

I've not completed the book but it looks to be ideal for travel. Take it with you, refer to it often. Plastic cover to protect, very informative, great map and pictures.

In a word, Wow! This is a superb "portrait" of this island. The photographs are absolutely stunning. But this isn't just a "postcard" view of Barbados -- there's lots of coverage of the people, history, and culture, too. The author-photographer has been traveling to Barbados for over two decades, and it shows both in his photographs and his extensive text, which gives a solid but concise presentation of Barbados' history in a very readable way without being dry. (Kind of National Geographic style.) And the picture captions are in-depth, presenting little gems of info about the picture subject matter if you're in too much of hurry to read the whole text. I've lived in Barbados, and this has the feel of an insider's view, not just someone who has breezed through the island and shot a few pictures.