The Carribean

In 24 vibrant chapters, each visiting a different island or group of islands from the 7000 dotting the waters between North and South America, Parkinson (Shake Dat Cocktail) offers a cookbook laden with recipes, travel tales, cultural histories and 1600 full-color illustrations. Noting that Caribbean cuisine has been largely overlooked, she sets out to remedy the matter with hundreds of dishes, many of which are decidedly exotic, with ingredients difficult for non-Caribbean chefs to find. The cassava flour required for Cassava Pie from Bermuda will be easier to locate than the Jamaican fruit, ackee, that figures in Ackee and Saltfish. Also from Jamaica are the more familiar jerk dishes. Other accessible dishes include Corn Fritters from Haiti and Stuffed Baked Red Snapper from Anguilla. Among recipes easier to read than prepare are How to Roast a Pig on a Spit as they do it in Puerto Rico, Round House Flying Fish Pat from Barbados, Cascadura Matete, which calls for Trinidad's strange mudfish, and Iguana, a Curacao favorite. Along the way, Parkinson provides a brief history of Jamaica's Rastafarian movement, a nonjudgmental look at cockfighting on Guadeloupe and an illustrated essay on the importance of the spice trade to Grenada, which supplies 40% of the world's nutmeg and mace. Cooks with wanderlust will find the breadth of Parkinson's coverage and the many lush photographs entrancing. (Aug.)