Book Talk: Belly Full Cookbook, Caribbean Food & Ingredients with Lesley Enston

Caribbean Cuisine with Lesley Enston, author of Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine Through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes [A Cookbook]

Join Hema and Lesley as they talk about Caribbean cuisine and history through the lens of Lesley's debut cookbook Belly Full, where she delves into Caribbean food through 11 fundamental ingredients.

In this episode, Lesley shares her personal background and family stories, some of her favourite dishes, and her views on Caribbean cuisine.

She describes the cultural melting pot that is Caribbean food as the world's first fusion cuisine, and highlights the importance of documenting traditional recipes and preserving culinary heritage while embracing adaptation and innovation. 

Lesley also talks about the diverse influences on Caribbean cuisine, her process of writing the cookbook, and the nuances of different island dishes. 

Connect with Lesley on Instagram

Find her book: Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine Through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes [A Cookbook]

Lesley Enston, Contributor Bon Appétit

BEM Bookstore in Brooklyn, NY

Episodes referenced: Caribbean Culinary History with Keshia Sakarah

Transcript

Lesley: Yeah. So I think that it is really underrated, the this point of history when the Caribbean, as we know it, came to be. Nothing like that had ever happened before where all these different people were suddenly brought together in one very small place or places, obviously. But  each island is tiny. You have no, you have to interact, and and of course food and all sorts of other parts of culture are going to sort of, be doing this. And that had never happened before. People had met other people, but it had never, they've never been a mashup like this in history. And so I, I say sometimes that our food is the first fusion food because you had all these elements coming together.

[music]  This is The Moreish Podcast where Caribbean history meets culture and cuisine.

Hema: Good morning, Lesley. Thank you so much for joining me today on The Moreish Podcast.

Lesley: Thank you so much for having me.

Hema: We are gonna talk today about the cookbook that you wrote, which is filled with recipes and stories from the Caribbean. But before we dive into that, can you introduce yourself?

Lesley: Sure. So my name is Lesley Enston. I'm a home cook, a recipe developer and author, and wrote Belly Full, which came out last year. I'm very proud of it.

Hema: Let's talk about the book and how it came to be. You mentioned you're a home cook, so let's talk about.

Lesley: Sure. So I, in 2020-ish, I started doing recipe development for Bon Appetit and some other publications, and as I was doing that, I have a friend who has been in food forever and he was really pushing me, 'cause I'd always had this sort of idea of a book in the back of my head. Um, and he encouraged me, like, now is the time you've got this momentum going, just do it.

And I said, what is it going to be about? He said, just start cooking and you'll figure it out.

And so being from a half Trinidadian background and being surrounded by Caribbean people all my life, everywhere I've lived, that food is always, of course, top of mind. And I started to, you know, I was reading cookbooks and looking around and realizing how few at the time, books featuring our food existed, and all the ones that did exist were sort of old and many of them were written by people that weren't even from our places, and I thought it was time to change that. So I knew that I wanted to do something that was Caribbean. And as I started cooking, I just was fascinated by all the similarities and differences that I didn't know between the different islands and and nations. Um, yeah. So it just sort of evolved from there.

Hema: There's so much in what you just said, so I'm gonna ask you a few questions. First of all, you mentioned you're half Trinidadian, and in fact, when I was reading your bio, you and I have something in common is, living in Toronto.

Lesley: Yeah, so I grew up in Toronto. My mom moved from Trinidad, first to Brooklyn, and then to Toronto, and then to Brooklyn, and then to Toronto, where she met my dad, who is Canadian, like British descent, but super Canadian. And so, you know, growing up, as you know, in Toronto, very big Caribbean population, largely Trinidadian and Jamaican. And so grew up around that my whole life. And of course my family, going to lots of big Trinidadian fetes with food, always, you know, no matter what's happening, it's a funeral. Food! It's Sunday in the summer. Food! 

Yeah, so I think my love of our food started there and, and trips home to my mom's town in Princess Town when I was little.

Hema: Growing up in Toronto, for me, it wasn't quite evident to a lot of people being Indo-Caribbean, that I was from the Caribbean. But there is a very large Caribbean population, Trinidadian population here. What was that like, that identity like for you?

Lesley: So it's interesting because I remember in middle school maybe, we did a project where we studied multiracial families from different, or kids rather, from different nations. And I remember reading stories from kids in the United States and in the UK that were so different from mine because it was a, it was a big thing that they were mixed race and like, which one do you choose?

And I was like, I, growing up in Canada always felt kind of like, people were like, oh, cool, you're from two different cultures. Great. And it, so it was, it was never really a thing for me. Also, I think my dad just embraced my mom's Trinidadian heritage very much. He was, he is aware that he comes from a culture whose food is not super exciting. And I think his mom, my grandmother on his side was a wonderful woman, but cooking was not her thing, and my dad learned very early in life that he liked food from other places. He lived in Mexico for a while, so he was, he was all about it. And he was just excited whenever she was in the kitchen working on anything, he was ready and there for it.

Hema: Just embracing the different cultures. Did you find that you had, growing up, a mix of more Canadian, British-style food, and Trinidadian food in your house? Was it sort of a mashup?

Lesley: It was a bit of a mashup, but because my mom did most of the cooking, it was really mostly Trinidadian. And she would do some, she would do like a pot roast or you know, she would do some sort of Canadian or North American dishes, but always with a little Trini spin on it. Or she would do like lots of stir fries 'cause in Trinidad there's also this Chinese influence, so we had that going on. And then my dad would contribute salads. I think I say this in the book, salads, that was his thing and he was very good at it and I'm grateful for it 'cause I love salad now.

Hema: At what age did you, move to New York, which is where you are now?

Lesley: Mm-hmm. I moved here basically when I was 20. Yeah. As again, I feel like this is this Caribbean thing. We had lots of family here, so growing up I was coming down all the time and the first time I came I was 12, and I was like, I'm moving there. My mom's like, you're 12, you know, whatever. And I did it. It took me a while, but I did it.

And then when I came here, it opened up a whole other, like I had never really met Haitians before moving to New York, and that became a big influence in my life.

Hema: You talk in the book about that exposure to people from other parts of the Caribbean, and the way they speak and how you started to learn a little bit more about people, the way Trinis speak and that sort of sing-song way, but Haitians sound, I think you said sound like maybe they're yelling?

Lesley: Oh yeah, and I think any Haitian will tell you that that's true.

Hema: Was there anything surprising for you when you moved to New York and started to encounter all of these other people?

Lesley: I mean, I think ultimately it felt comfortable. So yeah, moving to New York, I was exposed then to Haitians and Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in a way that I had never been before. And our cultures are very different. They're very different than Trinidadian culture. And yet I felt very at home with all of those groups of people because I think we have some like fundamental core truths. And even going to Puerto Rico feels like going home in a way. So, I would say more than surprised. I was surprised at how easy that was, and how easily we were able to communicate. 

But then, I and it, it's not just because I wrote a cookbook, I've always noticed this, the food. So you know, you go to a Dominican restaurant and you're like, oh, I know all these ingredients, but this is not how I've ever prepared them. And Haitian food honestly like, blew my mind 'cause it was so different to me than anything I had ever had.

Hema: That's one of the things that always strikes me is similar ingredients, familiar ingredients, but being used in different ways.

Lesley: Mm-hmm.

Hema: Just slightly different from country to country. That is always so fascinating because we have such a shared history, but it shows up in different ways because every country, every island has their own unique history.

Lesley: Yeah, absolutely. And that came through when I was working on the book very much.

Hema: There is a quote from your book that I want to talk about, which is "the Caribbean is the original melting pot, and as a result, our food has a rich, though at times, harrowing narrative".

Lesley: Yeah. So I think that it is really underrated, the this point of history when the Caribbean, as we know it came to be. Nothing like that had ever happened before where all these different people were suddenly brought together in one very small place or places, obviously. But like each island is tiny. You have no, you have to interact, and and of course food and all sorts of other parts of culture are going to sort of, be doing this. And that had never happened before. People had met other people, but it had never, they've never been a mashup like this in history. And so I, I say sometimes that our food is the first fusion food because you had all these elements coming together.

You have West Africans are meeting the native people there, and then the colonizers have their little spin on it. They need, I, I want this food that I'm used to at home. How can we recreate it here? And it's just, it's so fascinating, and of course, and some of it is really upsetting.

Soup Joumou, for instance, how the enslaved people couldn't eat it. They had to grow it, they had to cook it, and they couldn't eat it until the revolution. That always sticks to me.

Hema: Yeah, it's, it's everything that you just said, right? It's all of these cultures coming together. And I've talked to a couple of historians who say, the history of the Caribbean is very unique in the world, as you said, it's one of the, if not the only place where there was almost complete destruction and then reconstruction of a culture.

And that is influenced by all of the peoples that have touched the country, whether it's the Indigenous, the colonizers who came from different places in Europe…

Lesley: Right.. 

Hema:  the enslaved Africans, the Indians, the Chinese, the Portuguese, like there's so many other people…

Lesley: Yeah.

Hema: that came together to influence food and culture.

Lesley: Yeah, it's fascinating. And I think that one of the things I didn't realize was how the, the Portuguese were just kind of like riding around the world, picking up things and dropping them off. Like, woo, here's some plantain woo. Um, which is, it's amazing. Like who we wouldn't have had some of the food that's such staples for us, wouldn't have gotten there if it wasn't for these sort of pirating Portuguese.

Hema: Yeah, that's, that is such a, an interesting, important piece of our food history that a lot of people don't quite understand is ackee would, were it not for that time in history and the colonizers bringing it from Africa, it would not be the food that it is. And so popular in Jamaica, for instance. Saltfish, which is so popular

Lesley: Yeah.

Hema: Across the Caribbean, wouldn't have, wouldn't have gotten there if it were not for that time in history.

Lesley: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, codfish has such a, it played a huge role in that history, it was, it was currency. It was the beginning of capitalism, sort of interesting, this little fish, well, it's not so little, but in the grand scheme of things.

Hema: And I think that’s where you say sometimes it’s a bit of a harrowing narrative, in that if it weren’t for needing food to cheaply feed the enslaved people…breadfruit, saltfish. All of these things would not have made it, would not have made their way to the Caribbean and become so popular.

Lesley:  Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Hema: And that leads us into our conversation about your book. You focus on 11 core ingredients. I wanna talk about that, how you came, came up with these 11 ingredients and why you chose to highlight those.

Lesley:  So, I talked a little bit about sort of my process to, to the book. Um, and so then I started thinking, okay, I realized I want to have a Pan-Caribbean cookbook, and how am I going to do that? And I don't want to be pandering or I'm not trying to make an ency encyclopedia of every single dish, 'cause that's just not possible. And I don't want to make any claims that these are the dishes of the Caribbean, because that's also dangerous territory. And I was trying to figure out how, how am I organizing this book? What's the core? And as I'm looking at recipes and cooking, like my friend said, just cook and eat. Cook and eat. I'm, I start seeing patterns of, oh well we all use that. Oh and oh. Oh, I didn't know they used that over there too.

And so I realized, oh, look at that. I could make chapters based on these different ingredients. And while these are certainly not the only ingredients that are used in the Caribbean, these were pretty standardly across and, and represent the food I think, very well. There were a few that almost made it that didn't, breadfruit you mentioned was one originally that was going to be a chapter, and then I realized we all kind of do the same basic stuff with it. We roast it, we grill it, mash it, and I couldn't quite make a full chapter out of that. So they get a, it gets a little shout out, but got taken off the list. 

But the rest of these ingredients are things that, like Caribbean food wouldn't be the food without them. And, and we all do very different things with them that are yet somewhat similar.

Hema: Are there any ingredients that stand out for you as being more versatile than others?

Lesley: Sure. Well, beans, I think. Beans, beans, beans, beans. I grew up eating a lot of beans. I love beans, and even in working in the chapter, obviously we stew them a lot, but also we grind them up. We make fritters out of them. We put them in roti. I didn't put roti in the book 'cause that's just too complicated, but it's one of my favourite things. 

I think that, we are a group who has found a lot of ways to use beans, probably out of necessity, a protein, a cheap protein. And I'm sure that we were taught that by the Indigenous people because they were there growing beans long before anyone else showed up. So definitely beans and also also plantain, which is one of my favourite, my favourite things.

You know, you can eat it green, you can eat it ripe. You can fry it, you can grill it, you can roast it, you can mash it, you can put it in sweet things, you can put it in savoury things. It has resistant starch, so it's good for you. Yeah, I think those are the two things that might stand out the most.

Hema: When you talk about plantain, growing up, I only ever had it sweet, so boiled, fried, boil & fry, and it wasn't until I got older that I learned that other people ate it green. Whole new world for me and whole new set of ways of cooking. It's fascinating that this one ingredient can be used in so many different ways.

Lesley: In so many different ways. I had the same experience. My mother would just boil sweet plantain, um, and it was fine. I was ambivalent towards it. Like, okay. Yeah, it was a vessel for saucy things. You know, I, I liked it when it showed up with stew fish, but it, whatever.

And then I came here, and I had a friend who, I still have this friend, he's Puerto Rican and Colombian, and I remember he took me somewhere. We had tostones, I had tostones, fried green plantain for the first time. And just like, it was like lights went off. Fireworks were going. I was like, what? What is this magic? And then I started to learn all the different things that you can do with it.

Hema: Uhh.. So good.

You mentioned roti, and you said you didn't put that in the book because it's so complicated. I wanna ask you a question, we're both of Trinidadian heritage. When you say roti, what do you mean?

Lesley: I, uh, I specifically mean dhal puri roti personally. That's like all, it's we, that's all we ever had. I don't know why. I think I had an aunt who made it, and it was one of those things where she lived in Trinidad and we just would stock up and bring it home and put it in the freezer. I'd be like, mom, why can't you make roti?

And she was like, don't talk to me about that. Auntie Monica makes roti. That is that. And then later on we, you could go to a roti shop and buy it and put it in your freezer. But yeah, dhal puri roti with the split peas inside.

Hema: Mm-hmm.

Lesley: That, that is my, that's my roti. I also like buss up shut.

Hema: When you say roti, that's what you picture is dhal puri?

Lesley: Yes.

Hema: Which is interesting because for me, when I say roti, it's, first, the first thing that comes to mind is sada roti.

Lesley: Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Hema: And, and then dhal puri, but then there's aloo roti and buss up shut and all of the other things. People often have a different answer based on what they grew up eating the most.

Lesley: Sure. Well, and so one thing that I learned in working, not necessarily working on the book, but just researching in general, that my mother always made two different kinds of bake. One was coconut bake, like pot bake, and the other one she just called bake. And it was, it was not fry bake. It was on the, um, I can't remember what you call it now. The big iron thing that you put on the stove.

Hema: Oh, the tawa.

Lesley: You can make roti. Yes. she called it bake, but then I came to realize, no, that was sada roti.

Hema: Oh, so she called sada roti bake.

Lesley: Yes.

Hema: Interesting. Okay.

Lesley: Yeah. It took me a long time to figure that out because I was like, why can't I find any recipes for this? Ohhhhh…..

Hema: Now, what is your mom's background?

Lesley: She is Trinidadian, a large mashup. There's a little bit of everything. My sister recently did one of those DNA tests and we confirmed that she's a whole, my mom was a whole bunch of stuff. Predominantly African descent, but also some Indian and some Chinese background.

Hema: The reason I ask that is because that also makes a difference in what you would have grown up eating for, for 

Lesley: Sure, absolutely.

Hema: a.... as, as a child or what you would be most familiar with. I was having a conversation with someone else who talked about cornmeal porridge, and I didn't grow up eating that, because that's more of a Afro-Caribbean tradition.

Lesley: Right.

Hema: It's not something that I grew up with, but it's something that is very familiar to her because it's just a part of her staple diet.

Lesley: Yeah. Yeah. We never, we never ate that. But my cousin who is half, half Trinidadian and half Jamaican, her Jamaican mother used to make that, all the time. 

Hema: I, I wanna go back to that, that roti conversation. We talked very briefly about some of the different rotis that we're familiar with, but then there's the history part of it. Did you dive into any of that in your research?

Lesley: Not so much, partly because, it wasn't in the book, so I didn't go too deep into it. But it is, it's fascinating to me, and I think sometimes about doing a Trinidadian-specific book. So we will get more into that. I do remember going to uh, Malaysian restaurant once and they had roti on the menu, and we got it. And I was, it was so interesting because it was familiar, but not, it was much, much thinner than anything I've ever experienced. But also, so obviously like, oh, this is, you see the connection and how this is all like coming from the same place. And it was so good. so good.

Hema: You talk in the book about people fighting about the best way to cook a dish, and that is something across the Caribbean, even the way I say Caribbean or Caribbean, people fight about...

Lesley: Yep.

Hema: We have dishes that are called the same thing.

Lesley: Mm-hmm.

Hema: A pelau

Lesley: Mm-hmm.

Hema: is is a pelau. And the fundamentals of it is the same, but it's different. It's made different from family to family, from country to country. Our curries are different. And I'm sure you encountered that a lot when you were researching the book and talking to people. Is this, which way is the right way or the wrong way?

Lesley: Yes, yes. This is something that I think that we, I think we fight about it too much, personally. Sometimes it's all in good fun and I that's fine, but sometimes it gets a little too serious and it's, I, they're all good. There's no bad way to make anything, I don't think. I think all of our food is incredible and I really just want us to celebrate our, our differences in that.

And whether we say peas and rice or rice and peas, like I don't think it matters. Many will disagree with me on that. 

Yeah, it's fascinating the, the arguments that happen between countries and even then within countries. 

I once published a recipe for sos pwa, which is Haitian, it's like a soupy bean thing, on Bon Appetit. And I made sure to say that it was based on a southern preparation. So in the south of Haiti, they'll put coconut milk in it. In the north of Haiti, they will not. And the, the comments were just like an explosion of, we don't use coconut milk in ours. Well, we do. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? It’s both….It's all good. Just they have, they use the coconuts and you don't use the coconuts. Both ways are great. Um, yeah, it's fascinating. I don't know why we dig into that so deeply.

I think that, unfortunately, I think colonialism has a lot to do with it. It was very good all over the world in breaking people apart that should have been together. So I think that is, that's a bit unfortunate. And it also did shape these, some of the nuanced differences, like we use parsley and we use cilantro, and that is, that has a lot to do with who the colonial power was that spent the most time in charge. But I wish that we would stop fighting about it.

Hema: I agree. It is in good fun sometimes, you know, the, is it curry chicken? Is it chicken curry? Is it rice and peas? Is it peas and rice? Sometimes it's just all in good fun, but people do get very serious about

Lesley: Yes.

Hema: this country makes the best whatever it is.

Lesley: Mm-hmm.

Hema: And sometimes I hear people say, don't go to a Jamaican's house to eat roti 'cause it's not gonna be good.

Lesley: Oh, my mom used to say that all the time.

Hema: In my opinion, it's not fair to say that it is gonna be different than a Trinidadian roti for sure.

Lesley: Yeah.

Hema: But doesn't mean it's any better or worse.

Lesley: Right? Right. It's just different.

Hema: It's just different. 

Lesley: And if you can just open your mind to that, right, like it's going to be different. And I think that because, or the way our food is it is so open. I mean, again, it's this mashup of so many different people and it's evolved over time and like, for instance, in Trinidad, something was going on and then indentured servants from India came and China and then they once again changed the food completely. It's always adapting and changing and so I think we should be open to to that.

Hema: It is always adapting and changing. The biggest changes happened back in the time that we're talking about, but it still is adapting and changing because as people immigrate to the different islands, currently, in Guyana and Trinidad, for example, there's a lot of Venezuelans coming over.

Lesley: Mm-hmm.

Hema: They're bringing the influence of their foods

Lesley: Absolutely.

Hema: and it's becoming a part of the culture. And 5, 10 years from now, it's just going to be the food that people eat in those areas.

Lesley: Right. And, and that's great. I think that's fascinating, but I think it also speaks to why we need to write these things down just so we don't forget what there was. And then I think it can, you know, it continues to grow and change.

Hema: You said something at the very beginning when you were talking about writing the book, is that there's not a lot of Caribbean cookbooks written by people from the Caribbean, and that is so very true. I mean, I have a handful that I am looking at now, yours is one of them, and I feel like it's so important that we get to tell our own stories, and we get to share our own recipes and be a part of that conversation, because otherwise it's still very much like the colonizers are speaking on our behalf.

Lesley: Absolutely, and they just don't, they don't know it like we know it. You know, from, from intimately, from the inside. When I was doing my research online, so much of what you get are just blogs from people who like, oh, I went to St. Lucia once and we had this really great cook and she made this thing. So now I'm trying to recreate it at home. And okay, I mean, go ahead and do that if you like, but it's just sort of strange that there's not more of us doing it. 

I think that there are more, since I.... Since I started working on the book and in the time since it's come out, more and more books are coming out, which is really heartening to see, and I know that there's some more in the works. So look out for that. But, I think finally people have realized, oh, we should let these people write their own narrative for this. 

But it's also interesting because I had a few people question, well, how many of these kinds of books can there be? And you're like, well, how many French cookbooks are there? And how many Italian cookbooks are there? There could be infinity Caribbean cookbooks the same way. I mean, 'cause again, our food, we have a a lot going on really, and there's a lot to talk about and there's so much history to talk about.

Hema: I mean, even if you look at my spice cupboard versus yours. I, I don't know what yours looks like, but I imagine there is a wide array of spices that are used in many different ways to produce many different flavour profiles.

Lesley: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Some people actually come over and note my spice collection because it is in addition to cooking Caribbean food, I like to cook food from all over the world, so I've got, whatever you need, I probably have it.

Hema: Talking about the cookbooks and, and how many are there and are people ready for it? I had a conversation with Keshia Sakarah who wrote Caribe, which is a cookbook and a history book, all rolled into one. And in that conversation, she said that she had been turned down a couple of times by publishers who just, in her opinion, weren't ready for something like this.

And I think from what I understand and from from the conversation I'm having with people is they're coming up against that barrier. Publishers are not really that interested. They don't think it's gonna do that well, and I think we're proving them wrong, now with books like yours.

Lesley: I hope so. I think that, also, this awakening, I don't know how long it lasted, but in, during the pandemic, opened a lot of doors and I think it's just up to us to make sure they don't close again. Um, just really stick our foot in there. We're here now. 

There's a bookstore near me, it just, it's, they've been online forever, but they just opened a brick and mortar close to me. It's called BEM and it's specifically African diaspora food books. And when you go in there and you look at the shelves, it's just amazing to see how many books there are. And, and a lot of them are very new, and it's beautiful and I hope that you know that this continues.

Hema: I hope so too. I think there is the supply and demand, right? You might not see your book in every single chain, large bookstore. But I think if people listening are interested and they start asking for these kinds of books, then the demand will be there.

Lesley: It goes a long way because it sends a message to the booksellers and it sends a message to the publishers, not just for, for our specific books. I mean, that helps me, of course, but for the greater, for the whole genre. Like, oh, these books are in demand and we should be picking up more of them.

Hema: Yeah.

Lesley: Because I do worry that it's starting to die down, this diversity in cookbooks. So hopefully that doesn't happen.

Hema: You said that we need to make sure that we are documenting the original recipes, and I wholeheartedly agree with you because historically, those recipes were passed down orally and not written down.

Lesley: Yes.

Hema: How do we go about making sure that we preserve those?

Lesley: It's really hard. So that was one thing in, in researching the book, I talked to a lot of people, aunties and grandmothers and, and all sorts of people, and they all would give me their recipes the same way my mom would show me how to cook something. It's like, oh, you know, like this much of this and you sprinkle this until it looks like that, and which is great if you're there and you're watching. But of course, if you're writing a cookbook for lots of people, they're not there with you watching. 

And I think that I fear sometimes that we might, people are less interested in learning these things, and I think that as long as it's documented and it's written down, it can get picked up later on. So perhaps people, I'm, I'm not saying that this is true, I'm just making this up, if people in their twenties right now are not so interested in traditional recipes, my daughter who's seven, when she gets older, she might be.

She'll probably be interested in this book 'cause her face is in it. But generally, in learning these traditional recipes, I'm hoping that future generations will go back to these books and be able to, to recreate them.

Hema: I hope so, and be able to recreate several different versions of them. 

I say that my parents moved to Toronto, I was born and raised here, and I feel

Lesley: Mm-hmm.

Hema: like my Trinidadian food knowledge is based on 20, 30, 40 years ago, which is when they left Trinidad, that's what their food looked like. 

Lesley: Right.

Hema: If I go there now, things change and morph and they're using different ingredients or different ways of cooking.

Lesley: Yeah. I'm a big fan of, of use whatever you have. Take a recipe and use that as a foundation and then, and then roll with it. So you don't have that on hand, use something else. Your kids don't like, that use something they like. And that, that's cooking, like that is real, real life cooking. 

But I think it's great to have these sort of foundational pillars just to know what it was and why it was. That to me is one of the most important things, is like, why is this food what it is? What's the history of that?

Hema: Yeah, I think that comes through, if we think about it, in some of the cuts of meat that are used or these large one-pot dishes that have some historical influences or the, the cuts of meat being that the enslaved people were given these undesirable pieces

Lesley: M m-hmm.

Hema: and they made delicious dishes out of it.

Lesley: That is very true, but also, it was sort of a practice already in Africa to just use small bits of very fragrant meat or fish. They would leave it out until it got super funky and, and colonials people would just be like, I can't, what are they? They're gonna eat that? But it was for flavouring less so than, than the meat eating itself.

So I think that they took that knowledge and then this is all we've got, and they kind of put it together to create. Neck, bones and feet and all of, all of those things, which I think in my, in the book somewhere, I talk about the one, so my dad would make one Trinidadian dish and that was souse. And it made my mom, she just, she didn't grow up, she grew up in a Seventh Day Adventist house, and a very poor house. They didn't eat, they did not eat pork. They ate very little meat, and and pig's feet were just not a thing. Like she had eat, at this point she would eat pork, no problem. But the pig feet was just going too far for her. And you know, it's cold and gets congealed and they're swimming around with some cucumbers.

And she was just why is this in my kitchen? And my dad would be like, this is my favourite thing ever.

Hema: How did he come to souse as being his dish?

Lesley: I don't know. I think on a trip, a trip to Trinidad, somebody, you know, they used to love him. My dad, the sort of goofy white Canadian guy, they were just, they adored him in Trinidad, and someone gave, they probably thought he was gonna hate it. They probably gave it to him as a joke because Trinidadians are very, you know, they're jokesters. He just, he loved it.

My dad liked, he liked cow tongue and sheep brain, and he liked those things. I don't know. It's very strange 'cause that's not a dish that people necessarily know.

Hema: No. To be honest, I probably had souse two or three times in my life, and it's just not the thing that I gravitate towards.

Lesley: No. Nope. I had it. Every summer it came out several times and I would just drink the broth cos it was limey. And then I like cucumbers and there was onions in there and I just tried to ignore the bits of foot that were floating. But yeah, not my favourite thing either.

Hema: You said that in your book that you hope that the book underscores the Caribbean way of making do, the spirit of creative license and the basic idea that you can work with what you've got, which you just sort of spoke about. But let's talk about making do, creative license, and working with what you've got.

Lesley: Yeah, well, so the people the people on the islands, and I, when I, I think specifically about the enslaved Africans coming to this new place, having to work with ingredients that they weren't familiar with, and then only having access to certain things.

You know, there was lots of stuff they weren't allowed to have. There were things that they could only have if they grew themselves. I think they relied a lot on indigenous knowledge and help for food as well. And so they had to sort of adapt to this new world and make food. Food obviously was very important to them, and culturally, and I think it's one of the things that probably helped to not completely break spirits, was finding ways to make food that still was delicious and nourished their souls. And I think that that is, that spirit carries through the food to this day that, yeah, you, you find a way. There's always a way. If you have it in your heart, you know, to make a dish that will sing, you can find a way to do that with whatever you have.

And I, that's why, even though I know people get very, like, this is the way you make this dish. I am a firm believer, in you make the dish the way that works for you. And I mean, you make it the way that works for your family, and you make it the way that you're going to eat it. If you look at a recipe and you're just like, I'm, that's not, I'm not going to eat that. There's always alternatives for things and you, you make it your way. There's some dishes that I wouldn't mess with, like Soup Joumou, don't get too crazy with it. Very important history there. But I think that it's, I think it's good and I think that we're doing the food justice when we find ways to adapt it for our lives.

Hema: I like to when I, I'm cooking from a cookbook or, or somebody else's recipe, I like to make it exactly the way they write it the first time.

Lesley: Yes, I do that too.

Hema: I, I know what it, what their intention was, and then I can play around with flavours and what I like. When somebody picks up your book, do you have any thoughts on how they should start with it?

Is because there's stories, there's, there's beautiful photos that I looked at and remind me of my time in Trinidad.

Lesley: Good! I love to hear that.

Hema: The colour of the walls and the, the table settings. I mean, it's just, it was so familiar to me. But somebody picks up your book. How do they use it?

Lesley: Well, how do they use it? However they want. I, when I get a book, I like to, I don't necessarily read the whole thing cover to cover, but I like to look at it cover to cover, um, and just look at what stands out to me. What are dishes that feel like something that I want to eat and something that is familiar in my, I don't go for the unfamiliar ones first. I think that it's good, especially if, well, regardless, I think if you are familiar with this food or you're not, I think it's a nice place to start with something that is familiar to you. Whether it's, I like to eat beans a lot, or I love salted cod, or I really like spicy things. Start somewhere that feels familiar. I would say try as best as possible to get the ingredients that are listed. I know that it can be hard when you live somewhere else, but some of them, to really get the taste, you know, like you just need a seasoning pepper. Nothing else tastes like a seasoning pepper. So try as much as possible to do that and, and work from there.

And I, again, I'm the same as you. I like to make a recipe exactly the first time so I know what the intention is, and then I riff on it from there. But I'm cool if people wanna riff from the beginning, that's okay with me. Don't get mad at me if it doesn't taste good, if you've made it something different. But feel free to adapt, you know, for yourself. And then once you're more comfortable, then start exploring the dishes that you might not be familiar with. And I think that goes also for Caribbean people, because for me, there was so many things that I had never tried or heard of before.

When I was researching this dish, like, um, what's it called? The Dominican, well, the Dominican and Puerto Rican, some people call it a lasagna, it's not. With plantain and ground meat.

Yeah. And I, my friend who's Dominican, who helped me with a lot of the Dominican recipes told me about it. And I was just like, what are you talking?

And she was like, you've never had this. You have to come over right now. And it was so good and it didn't make any sense to me, it shouldn't have been good. And I was ready for it to not, I was like, I don't know about this. It was so delicious. So, you know, work your way up to the ones that kind of sound weird. But try them too.

Hema: Yeah. And, and even beyond that, because you talk about ingredients, then you can start to use some of these ingredients in maybe recipes that you are already familiar with. 

Lesley: Absolutely.

Hema: Start incorporating different ingredients into your own recipes.

Lesley: Yeah, absolutely. Like instead of potatoes, you could try cassava. Delicious.

Hema: We're coming up to the end of the year. Christmas time is a big food time.

Lesley: Oh yeah.

Hema: Do you have any, I must have this at Christmas, that either you make or somebody else makes for you.

Lesley: So I must have sorrel. And lately I've been making it. My mom used to make it. I've been making it and I'm pretty good at it. I'm, I'm happy to say. And then my mother always made a ham for Christmas Eve, which I think that's very, it's sort of funny, she grew up in this not meat eating house and not pork, but ham is such a Trinidadian Christmas thing. So I, Christmas Eve dinner, regardless of who I'm with or where I am, there has to be ham. And then I always want someone to bring me either coquito or crémas. I've never made it. My, I've, I've sort of made it, I made it in conjunction with a friend in my house, but I've never made it on my own. And I'd rather someone just give me some.

Hema: And desserts. Are you a big black cake person?

Lesley: No. So this is like a perhaps divisive hot take. I was never, my mom was, my mom was like black cake production. We went into full production mode. She would have them in the freezer ready to gift, and I always had to help her. And like the little things of fruit, I hated the fruit, dried fruit. I couldn't stand it as a kid.

And I think that I just still… I can’t quite, most of the stuff that I didn't like as a child, I've gotten over, but for some reason that I have not. And so I've, I, this might be the year, 'cause every year I'm like, maybe I should try to make a black cake that I want to eat. 

So maybe this will be the year that I try, because it's like a, it's a point of embarrassment for me and again, and my mom, her spirit somewhere is just clutching her heart, like you still haven't gotten over that.

She knew that it wasn't my thing, but she was known for it. Everyone waited for hers. So it was good, but I just couldn't, I couldn't see it.

Hema: Black cake is one of the things that I really love in the original old-style version. When you start adding the mixed peels or some of the cherries or some of these other things, that's where I draw the line.

Lesley: Right. Yeah.

Hema: I don't want, I don't want that.

Lesley: Exactly. Exactly.

Hema: What are you working on? I mean, you've done a lot of writing, you said recipe testing and developing and other things. What are you working on now?

Lesley: So currently, I also work at a nonprofit, so I've been doing a lot of my sort of day job. But I am, I am doing some research and thinking about another book. I don't know yet. It's very early stages, so we'll see.

Hema: And if people want to find you or find the book, what's the full name of the book?

Lesley: The book is Belly Full Exploring Caribbean Cuisine Through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes. It's a lot of recipes in there, and it's available anywhere that books are sold pretty much. If people wanna connect with you, where's the best place to do that? If.

Lesley: It's Instagram, so it's at Lesenston, L-E-S-E-N-S-T-O-N. I'm there, it's me. It's not anybody else.

Hema: I will leave the links to the book, to your Instagram, so people can check it out, see what you're working on. 

Before we close off, is there anything else about Caribbean food that you want people to know?

Lesley: I just, I think again, that we're starting to, the, the world is starting to see this, but it's such a complex, nuanced, interesting, historically rich cuisine, and it's so different. And we're all, we're all different. And I think that there's this misnomer that from the outside that it's just all the same or it's like all just jerk chicken and I don't know what they think. And rice and beans I guess, and fruit. They're, I mean, yeah, we eat a lot of fruit, but like, and, and it's so much more than that. It is that and so much more. And even those, those things that people think of, they don't really know about, like jerk chicken has this super interesting history and I don't think people really know about that.

So I just encourage those that are not familiar with Caribbean food to investigate it a little more, try things they've never tried and, and learn a little bit more about where it comes from and why.

Hema: The where it comes from and why I think is so important. You see food differently when you learn the story of the food.

Lesley: Yeah, absolutely.

Hema: Thank you so much for joining me today on The Moreish Podcast. This was a fantastic conversation and I can't wait to just cook some new things from your book because there are recipes in there that I've never even heard of before. 

Lesley: Enjoy. Thank you so much for having me. 

[music] Thanks for joining me for today’s episode. Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast. It really does help in getting the podcast and our Caribbean stories in front of more people. See you for the next episode.