Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Part V Food and Drink around the World
- V.A The Beginnings of Agriculture: The Ancient Near East and North Africa
- V.B The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Asia
- V.C The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Europe
- V.D The History and Culture of Food and Drink in the Americas
- V.D.1 Mexico and Highland Central America
- V.D.2 South America
- V.D.3 The Caribbean, Including Northern South America and Lowland Central America: Early History
- V.D.4 The Caribbean from 1492 to the Present
- V.D.5 Temperate and Arctic North America to 1492
- V.D.6 North America from 1492 to the Present
- V.D.7 The Arctic and Subarctic Regions
- V.E The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania
- V.F Culinary History
- Part VI History, Nutrition, and Health
- Part VII Contemporary Food-Related Policy Issues
- Part VIII A Dictionary of the World’s Plant Foods
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- References
V.D.4 - The Caribbean from 1492 to the Present
from V.D - The History and Culture of Food and Drink in the Americas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Part V Food and Drink around the World
- V.A The Beginnings of Agriculture: The Ancient Near East and North Africa
- V.B The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Asia
- V.C The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Europe
- V.D The History and Culture of Food and Drink in the Americas
- V.D.1 Mexico and Highland Central America
- V.D.2 South America
- V.D.3 The Caribbean, Including Northern South America and Lowland Central America: Early History
- V.D.4 The Caribbean from 1492 to the Present
- V.D.5 Temperate and Arctic North America to 1492
- V.D.6 North America from 1492 to the Present
- V.D.7 The Arctic and Subarctic Regions
- V.E The History and Culture of Food and Drink in Sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania
- V.F Culinary History
- Part VI History, Nutrition, and Health
- Part VII Contemporary Food-Related Policy Issues
- Part VIII A Dictionary of the World’s Plant Foods
- Name Index
- Subject Index
- References
Summary
Following 1492, the Caribbean basin became a cultural meeting ground that remains unsurpassed for the variety of influences: European, Asian, African, and American. At times, the clash of cultures led to tragedy, such as the destruction of pre-Columbian Indians by European diseases or the centuries of African enslavement on sugar plantations. But the Caribbean people have also produced cultural triumphs, not the least of which are the tropical dishes of island cooking.
Cuisine can provide important insights into the process of cultural change. Each new group of immigrants to the Caribbean, from Taino “natives” (originally from South America) to Spanish conquistadors and from African slaves to Asian laborers, brought with them their knowledge of foods and how to prepare them. Island cuisine drew together maize and manioc from America, domesticated pigs and cattle from Europe, garden plants, such as okra and akee, from Africa, and citrus fruits and rice from Asia. Unfortunately, notwithstanding this rich variety of foods, poverty has made malnutrition a recurring problem in the region. Slaves (and many whites) suffered from a frightful variety of nutrition-related diseases, many of which have returned to haunt the impoverished masses of the twentieth century. Modernization has, meanwhile, threatened to replace traditional dishes with a processed and packaged uniformity of industrial foods. But island cooks have adapted to pressures, both economic and ecological, to create a genuinely global cuisine with a uniquely local taste.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Food , pp. 1278 - 1288Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
References
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