Good carribbean recipe book and accessories...?

[Iveputmyselfonthenaughtystep]

So I need to get DP a present and Caribbean food is a big thing for us, before lockdown we often travelled around looking for restaurants that did good West Indian cuisine. He's an excellent cook and I'd like to get him a decent recipe book, so does anybody have any tried and tested recommendations? I hate buying a cook book where it ends up there's only 2 and a half decent recipes.

Also are there any peripheral bits or 'accessories' it would be worth getting? He has a spice grinder already, but any cookware or unusual spices or anything that might be a good addition?

The original flava cookbook (its on Amazon)

An essential is dutchie cooking pot.

Thank you so much! I was looking at that one so it's good to have that reinforced!

This one. Amazing.

(Also on Amazon)

A swizzle stick, a good food processor or chopper for making 'seasoning' and if he is into Indo-Caribbean cooking, like recipes from Trinidad and Guyana, then a tawah and a dahl goatni. Also, some good deep iron pots. We do a lot of one-pot rice dishes, stews and soups and the pot needs to be large and hold a lot.

Ooh. Useful tips here. Thanks! I have a big le creuset that might work, but would like a bigger cooking pot anyway in the hopes we can socialise again. Spice grinder, stick blender, food processor all present and correct already, but nothing that would work like the tawah, so might have to invest there....

What's the bet I'll be back once the book arrives, asking where to get the best ingredients?

Dammit. The more I think about the food the more I want to go to a decent international food store.... or actually to the west indies

@SparklyWindow

This one. Amazing.

Ouch! Not sure i have 77 quid to spend on a book!

Oh sheesh! Didn't realise it was that much from Amazon, sorry! I got it when I was over there...

Go with the other recommendation then

It's not a cookbook but try www.simplytrinicooking.com/.

Also, this book seems to be good - www.amazon.com/Sweet-Hands-Island-Cooking-Trinidad/dp/078181250X?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

And if you can, get your hands on this one. Have no idea why it's so costly on Amazon. www.amazon.com/Multi-Cultural-Cuisine-Trinidad-Tobago-Caribbean/dp/9768173653?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Honestly, recipes are not our thing as a people. We learn by hanging around in the kitchen and watching our parents and grandparents cook. And children here are mollycoddled...we will eat whatever the adults cook...there was no relenting in that regard...so we've developed a taste for spicy, complex foods from an early age.

*NOT mollycoddled

@PumpkinPieAlibi

It's not a cookbook but try www.simplytrinicooking.com/.

Also, this book seems to be good - ]]

And if you can, get your hands on this one. Have no idea why it's so costly on Amazon. ]]

Honestly, recipes are not our thing as a people. We learn by hanging around in the kitchen and watching our parents and grandparents cook. And children here are mollycoddled...we will eat whatever the adults cook...there was no relenting in that regard...so we've developed a taste for spicy, complex foods from an early age.

I know, and I have no friends* I can hang around and learn from so I turned to mumsnet!

Your comment reminds me of a friend of mine who was having trouble getting her baby to eat the food she was trying to wean her onto. Turns out the health visitor had insisted she start the baby on the kind of bland pap you'd expect, but my friend was SE Asian and had been eating her usual highly spiced food during her pregnancy and bf so when she gave up on the HV and tried baby on some of the adult food the poor child suddenly became a great eater. It makes me chuckle to think of the little girl wondering why mummy's milk tasted fantastic but she was being given this tasteless mush to eat

Having grown up on fairly bland English food myself it's taken me a while to get to the point where I can eat some of the spices comfortably and I still struggle with some, but it's worth it for the flavour!

*I have friends, obviously, just none that could teach me this. Just in case I sound like a total loser

@SparklyWindow

Oh sheesh! Didn't realise it was that much from Amazon, sorry! I got it when I was over there...

Go with the other recommendation then

Hahaha. I did think you weren't perhaps aware of its rarity. Although if I'm going to spend that much on any book it probably would be a cookery book...