Caribbean Desserts: Tropical Treats from Your Favourite Islands

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

“The world lives in the Caribbean.” The culture of the Islands
includes historical influences from many countries, including the
British Isles, Asia, and Africa. This recipe collection reflects all
these diverse influences.

Fruit-based desserts, beverages, ice creams and sorbets, pies, cakes
and tea breads constitute the bulk of the collection. At the heart of
the book is a section called, simply, “sweets.” These are the unique
treats for which the Caribbean is famous, little bites of flavor that
call up images of blue lagoons and white sand beaches. There are
directions for making milk barfi, jalebi, gulab jamoon, ghul-ghula,
rasmalai, peera, and vermicelli cake.

Mango, kiwi, pineapple, papaya, and many of the other tropical fruits
featured in so many of the recipes are now available in most
supermarkets. Others such as soursop, cassava, and guava, may require a
trip to an international or West Indian market. A few of the recipes
call for spices or other ingredients (dried sorrel, mauby bark) not
readily available to most Canadian readers.

The generous use of pineapple, coconut, lime, and cardamon assure the
flavours of the Caribbean almost burst from every page. The memory of
this heady Island experience, treasured by every tourist, is
supplemented by a sprinkling of expressions and sayings in the local
dialect (with translations/interpretations), used as fillers throughout
the book.

A few scene-setting color plates (apparently all food is served on the
beach), an index, imperial and metric measures, and a practical layout
assure the book’s success.