Recipe developer and food writer Lesley Enston's new cookbook "Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine Though 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes" delve deep into the staple ingredients which make up the rich tapestry that is Caribbean food. From Trinidad and Tobago to Cuba, from Antigua to Jamaica, from Barbados to Martinique, Enston details the classic cuisine of each country, both disparate and uniting in its familiar base flavors.

Enston specifically references eleven ingredients — beans, cassava, coconut and rice among them — which make up the backbone of Caribbean cuisine at large, including unique recipes and varying uses for each staple ingredient based in the history and culture of each country.

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As Enston told me, to her, is holistic: "[it means] both a full belly and a full heart. It means satisfied and satiated and like all is right with the world."

Salon Food had the opportunity to speak with Enston about her favorite Caribbean dishes, the aforementioned eleven staple ingredients, a formative moment when she embraced food and cooking, her most used ingredients how her experience with the Haiti Culture Exchange influenced her cooking (and this book! and much more.

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Belly Full: Exploring Caribbean Cuisine Through 11 Fundamental Ingredients and Over 100 Recipes by Lesley Enston (Cover art by Nicholas Huggins/Ten Speed Press)

Hello there, I love the cover art! Who was the illustrator? How was the art direction ideated?

Thank you, I love it too! The artist is a Trinidad and Tobago based Illustrator, Nicholas Huggins, who was recommended to me by branding consulting Best Dressed Plate. I knew from the beginning I wanted an illustrated cover, and rather than featuring one cooked dish, I wanted it to represent the 11 ingredients in the book. I wanted anyone from any culture that uses any of these ingredients be able to see themselves in this cover. Markets in the Caribbean have been one of my favorite places since I was a kid in Trinidad. I love the colors, the smells and the bustle. I wanted a cover that represented that which is so part of our culture.

Do you have a favorite dish in the book?

That’s hard! I love so many of the dishes. One that has a special place in my heart is the Buljol (stewed salted cod) which is something my mom made so often growing up. It’s something she could make with her eyes closed and which I can too now. And it was something that I might whine about having again but secretly I’d always love eating it, which is sort of how it is with my daughter today.

What does "Belly Full" mean to you?

To me this phrase means both a full belly and a full heart. It means satisfied and satiated and like all is right with the world.
Snapper Escovitch-ish (Photo by Marc Baptiste)

Could you give a breakdown of the eleven staple ingredients you use to provide a foundation for Caribbean cooking throughout the book?

The 11 ingredients in the book — beans, calabaza, cassava, chayote, coconut, cornmeal, okra, plantains, rice, salted cod and scotch bonnet peppers — are all inherently Caribbean ingredients.

Some, like beans, calabaza, cassava, cornmeal and scotch bonnet peppers, are indigenous to the islands and were being processed and consumed by the people living there when........

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