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The
Caribbean has a long history as a cultural melting pot, and its cuisine
certainly reflects this. "Jerked" meats, which are prepared with local allspice
and pepper, thyme and garlic from Europe, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon from
Asia, and wrapped in plantain leaves from Africa, are an excellent example of
this diverse culinary heritage. In Congotay! Congotay!, Candice Goucher examines the history of cross-cultural contact that shaped Caribbean cuisine
and uses this to delve deeply into the social impacts of slavery, the
plantation economy, and globalization.
Goucher's book is organized into six chapters, each dealing
with a separate theme. The first chapter introduces the foods of the early
Atlantic world with a focus on the indigenous cuisines of the Caribbean and the
maritime staples of cod and sea biscuit. Much like preserved cod was soaked to
remove the salt in which it was encased, Goucher argues that Caribbean chefs stripped European foods of their old meanings and
infused them with the flavors of the region. The second chapter uses the
history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to examine the numerous African
influences on Caribbean cuisine. Enslaved Africans brought a variety of staples
to the region, including rice and yams, and embraced New World substitutes for
familiar foods in the form of corn (for plantains) or coconut milk (for palm
oil). Thanks to their startling autonomy in terms of food procurement and
preparation, Goucher contends that "the logical
outcome of the Caribbean's culinary history was the triumph of African
influences" (83).The third chapter looks at how sugar
was consumed by slaves even as producing it consumed their lives. Goucher also looks at how the abolition of slavery in
British colonies led to the arrival of one million Asian migrants who brought
with them their own distinctive culinary heritage, one which lives on in the
popularity of curries and roti today. The fourth chapter focuses on food as a
form of resistance, arguing that the spiritual importance of food in Africa and
the relative autonomy of cooks on slave plantations enabled them to poison
masters and perform illicit religious rituals. The fifth chapter reveals the
ways food factored into gender dynamics in Caribbean societies. This includes
fascinating sections on male bonding over bottles of rum ("liming") and the use
of various foods as aphrodisiacs, including callalo and chocolate. The final chapter grapples with the impact of globalization on
Caribbean cuisine and argues that postcolonial economic policies have tended to
privilege overseas producers while making food more expensive. In a region
shaped by the slave trade and European imperialism, globalization is just the
latest in a series of unequal relationships that have shaped the way people
understand food.
Food
is obviously the focus of this book, and Goucher's enthusiasm for the subject flows through every page. Recipes for everything
from pepper-pots to mojitos are included, as are more general descriptions of
countless additional foods. But her use of food as an entry point to crucial
themes like imperialism, slavery, migration, gender, sexuality, resistance, and
globalization is extremely significant. Her knowledge of the scholarly debates
on these subjects is impressive, and she makes a number of important
contributions. In the chapter, "From African Kitchens," she argues that the
millions of African slaves brought to Caribbean were never "dominated
completely by European tastes or cuisines" (59). By noting the African origins
of popular Caribbean foods like metagee and
jambalaya, she suggests that slaves retained aspects of their culture and were
active participants in shaping the Atlantic world. This fits neatly within
Thornton's scholarship on the slave trade, and supports his critique of Elkins'
vision of brutalized slaves stripped of their past. This chapter is critical to Goucher's main scholarly contribution – how cuisine
reveals the "architecture and agency of African cultural identity in the
Caribbean" (83).
Goucher's book is organized thematically and never attempts to provide a narrative
history of the Caribbean. However, its thematic chapters are ideally suited to
undergraduate level world history courses. The sections on cod fishing, the
slave trade, sugar production, syncretic religions, and globalization could each
be used to spark discussion in a general survey of world history from 1500 to
the present. Congotay! Congotay! is
a mélange like the food it describes and is similarly the better for it.
Dave Eaton is an associate professor of African history at
Grand Valley State University. He can be reached at eatond@gvsu.edu. |
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