Native American Cuisine of The Circum-Caribbean
This region comprises the cultures of the Arawaks, the Caribs, and the Ciboney. The Taíno of the Greater Antilles were the first New World people to encounter Columbus. Prior to European contact, these groups foraged, hunted, and fished. The Taíno cultivated cassava, sweet potato, maize, beans, squash, pineapple, peanut, and peppers. Today these groups have mostly vanished, but their culinary legacy lives on.
- Barbacoa, the origin of the English word barbecue, a method of slow-grilling meat over a fire pit;
- Jerk, a style of cooking meat that originated with the Taíno of Jamaica. Meat was applied with a dry rub of allspice, Scotch bonnet pepper, and perhaps additional spices, before being smoked over fire or wood charcoal.
- Casabe, a crispy, thin flatbread made from cassava root widespread in the Pre-Columbian Caribbean and Amazonia;
- Bammy, a Jamaican fried bread made from cassava and coconut milk or water;
- Guanime, a Puerto Rican food similar to the tamale;
- Funche or fungi, a cornmeal mush seasoned with salt and butter;
- Cassareep, a sauce, condiment, or thickening agent made by boiling down the extracted juices of bitter cassava root;
- Pepperpot, a spicy stew of Taíno origin based on meat, vegetables, chili peppers, and boiled-down cassava juice, with a legacy stretching from Jamaica to Guyana;
- Bush teas, popular as herbal remedies in the Virgin Islands and other parts of the Caribbean, often derived from indigenous sources, such as ginger thomas, soursop, inflammation bush, kenip, wormgrass, worry wine, and many other leaves, barks, and herbs;
- Ouicou, a fermented, cassava-based beer brewed by the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles;
- Taumali or taumalin, a Carib sauce made from the green liver meat of lobsters, chile pepper, and lime juice.
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