Eat Caribbean

Caribbean cookery has been ill-served by the region's restaurants, many of which provide bland dishes and half-hearted attempts at ""Continental"" classics. As a result, most visitors to the islands never taste real Caribbean food, which is often delicate, complex and refreshingly spicy. This jovial cookbook sets out to repair the Caribbean's culinary reputation. Beautifully photographed and relentlessly cheery, the volume includes recipes for favorites like Grilled Jerk Chicken, Salt Fish Fritters and Quick-Time Pepperpot Soup. Cuban Oxtail with Rioja is audaciously rich and hearty, and Pumpkin Lobster Bisque is positively decadent. A few technicalities, however, dampen the book's otherwise considerable appeal. First, the book was originally published in Britain, but its Britishisms were never translated, so the recipes often call for ""courgettes"" instead of zucchini, ""aubergines"" instead of ""eggplant"" and a mysterious squash called ""christophene,"" that goes by ""mirliton"" in certain parts of the U.S. Second, the recipes often include hard-to-find ingredients and don't provide alternatives, which can prove frustrating to a cook who can't locate, for example, a scotch bonnet pepper. Regardless of these problems, anyone interested in sampling true Caribbean cookery will find this book a tasty resource.