Okra, plantains, sweet potatoes and mangoes: these and all the other essential ingredients of Jamaican cooking are now widely available in Britain, bringing the delights of the island’s cooking within anyone’s reach.

Covering all aspects of Jamaican cuisine from soups to preserves, fish to ices, Classic Jamaican Cooking also presents a range of traditional herbal remedies and drinks. With recipes as varied as plantain tart and shrimp soup, salt fish patties and coconut ice-cream, this book dispels once and forever the myth that Jamaican cookery begins and ends with curried goat and rice and peas.

Needing only occasional modification for the modern reader (“Take seven gallons of rum, three gallons of seville orange juice...”), Caroline Sullivan brings alive the wealth and variety of the island’s food. With its blending of European and African influences, Jamaican cooking rests on a foundation of tropical fruits and vegetables, and the author draws out the full range of their flavors in one of the world’s most interesting cuisines.