The A to Z of Delicious Caribbean Food - Karlene Rickard

This book contains a series of illustrations of fruits and vegetables from different parts of the world which are available to people in England.

When Mark (Pianki) visited the local markets in London, he saw many fruits and vegetables such as mangoes, bananas, zaboca, plantains and pineapples. When he visited the markets in Bridgetown, Barbados and Kingston
Jamaica, he was thrilled to find similar fruits and vegetables.

All the fruits and vegetables illustrated in this book are grown in the Caribbean, even though most of them originated in places such as Africa, The Americas and India. Cassava is one of the native foods of the Caribbean.

The variety of fruit and vegetables was taken to the Caribbean by explorers, colonisers and Africans who were enslaved.

The Caribbean is a group of islands surrounded on the west by the Caribbean Sea and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean.

The islands, although generally very hot, vary in the amount of rainfall, prevailing winds, soil compositions, rock formation, topography and mineral wealth. These climatical and geographical factors affect the fruits and vegetables grown in the islands; for instance, Jamaica grows a wider variety of mangoes than Barbados.

The foods mentioned in this book can all be found growing in different parts of the Caribbean Islands. It is possible to grow Caribbean foods in other parts of the world for example; tomatoes are grown in England, mangoes in
India, yams in Africa and so on.

These foods can be bought in most large supermarkets and certain small shops worldwide. In England, they are sold by many ethnic shops as well as major supermarkets. These are generally available in markets such as Ridley Road, Walthamstow and Brixton in London as well as markets in Wolverhampton and Birmingham in the West Midlands.