The Sugar Mill Caribbean Cookbook (2 page)

Our thanks also to a great lineup of chefs, including Rick Buttafuso, Ivor Peters, Jeff Oakley, Chris Griffiths, and Mona Donovan, who, over the years, helped make the Sugar Mill a special place to dine and contributed much to this book.

We're grateful to Cheryl and Bill Jamison, who gave us a push in the right direction, and to Belle and Barney Rhodes, who were there at the beginning to support us in a most tangible way.

We salute our editors at Bon Appétit, especially Bill Garry and Barbara Fairchild, for sticking with us for all these years and sending us to all corners of the Caribbean on delicious voyages of discovery.

A good editor is to writers what a sturdy net is to high-wire performers. Linda Ziedrich is one of the best, combining sensitivity and precision in just the right balance. Dan Rosenberg's enthusiasm and hard work guided the project from the beginning, and Dorothy Reinhardt's illustrations add charm and style to the book.

We thank Carl Brandt, as always, both agent and friend. Carl also has fallen prey to the wacky lure of paradise, and now, during our favorite part of the year, he and his wife Clare are fellow residents of Tortola.

The staff of the Sugar Mill has shouldered a bigger load than usual to give us the time to complete this book, and we are most appreciative of that. A special thanks is owed to our General Manager, Patrick Conway, who leads the team, and Assistant Manager Joanna Samuels-Watson, who keeps us all sane.

Like romantics everywhere, we are always at the mercy of our fantasies. At no time was this more evident than one starry night more than a dozen years ago when we walked into a hotel and restaurant in a beautiful old stone building on the Caribbean island of Tortola and fell head over heels into the craziest period of our lives.

The place was for sale.

And so began our Caribbean saga, an adventure that took us from our home in California to a new life as owners of a small hotel and restaurant in the British Virgin Islands. From the first it was a madcap scheme, since we were neither seasoned hoteliers nor restaurateurs. As writers specializing in food and wine, we had traveled the world and stayed at a variety of hotels, but that experience qualified us for owning a hotel in much the same way that being frequent flyers would qualify us to handle the controls of a DC-10.

It didn't take us long to realize that it would take hard work and an abiding sense of humor to fulfill our dream of creating a special small resort with a certain style and a
soupçon
of elegance; in other words, the sort of hotel we liked to stay in when we traveled.

Fortunately, the Sugar Mill itself gave us a head start toward our dream. The hotel is built on the site of the old Appleby Plantation, from which Tortola's Apple Bay gets its name. Only a small, crumbling wall remains of the Great House, which we suspect was great more in name than in elegance. But the beautiful old stone boiling house, where rum was made, still stands, and it now houses our main restaurant.

The old Sugar Mill has been witness to more than three centuries of Caribbean history. Sometimes on a starlit night, when a breeze blows softly through the candlelit dining room, we think we can almost hear the whispers of those plantation days long ago.

Clearly, however, it would take more than such romantic notions to make the Sugar Mill a success. When we came to Tortola we were long on theory and woefully short on hotel and restaurant experience. We listened, learned, and eventually began to get the hang of things. But, as always in the islands, each day brought a new challenge.

The problem of getting supplies is a complaint that runs up and down the islands, and we were no exception. The ferry that brought us most of our provisions was a leaky lifeline to suppliers, who appeared to see the Sugar Mill as a place where that last crate of antediluvian lettuce might find a home.

Electricity, too, can be a sometimes thing in the West Indies, and equipment such as blenders and food processors have a way of expiring just as the first diners are being seated. The romantic dining room is suddenly plunged into darkness (to say nothing of the chaos that ensues in the kitchen) and guests begin feeling their way through the crowd, often making lifelong friendships along the way. This event is usually followed by the discover that the propane bottle feeding the ranges has run out of gas, and that the lantern batteries appear to be so old and corroded that they might have been salvaged from Truk Lagoon.

It is inevitable that, on an evening when all of the foregoing has taken place, when the cisterns have run dry, and when a group of surfers is in the bar delighting the cocktail crowd with unsavory college drinking songs, the food critic from the
New York Times
strolls in.

Faced with such new challenges, we did what so many others in the islands have done. We improvised. With more optimism than good sense, we planted a vegetable garden and watched our neighbors shake their heads at our folly in trying to grow herbs and lettuce and mysterious vegetables in the dry and rocky soil we called our own. Eventually, though, the vegetable garden thrived, and tided us over until boats and planes began bringing a wider variety of fresh produce and a couple of new ferries linked us more reliably with overseas suppliers.

However, it was the native ingredients that really intrigued us. What cook could resist the temptation of trees weighted with mangoes, papayas, soursop, sugar apples, guava, coconuts, plantains, bananas, and avocados? We learned to work with local vegetables that we found at Tortola's colorful open-air market, including pumpkins of all shapes and varieties, breadfruit, christophene, a type of spinach that grows on a vine, and "provisions"—knobby and strange-looking root crops, including dasheen and taro, that are essential to many local recipes. At the market, too, we found friendly farmers who told us about guavaberry wine and sold us bundles of homegrown parsley, rosemary, thyme, and green onion, tied together and called "seasonings," and explained the incendiary properties of the various peppers they displayed.

Hot peppers have always played a vital role in the Caribbean kitchen. To many people there is no discernible difference among chile peppers except for the degree to which they incinerate the palate. To islanders, however, each pepper has a personality of its own, and each dish dictates the pepper of choice. In Jamaica, otherwise gentle folk have argued for years over the relative merits of the country pepper versus the Scotch bonnet. Other islands have their own special favorites. In our recipes we've tried to keep the BTUs within the guidelines of the Geneva Convention.

The fruitful sea surrounding our islands is another inspiration to any cook. The local lobster is a succulent creature (really a large crawfish) that makes up for what it lacks in claws with the tasty meat in its tail. Conch (pronounced "conk") is a wondrous sea critter, as temperamental as California's famed abalone. When properly handled it presents a gentle, appealing flavor of the sea. Ground and seasoned into spicy little morsels wrapped in a fragile batter, it becomes conch fritters, a perfect accompaniment to cocktails. In salads or delicious chowders, conch is queen on many island menus. Whelks are another gift from the sea. Living on rocks just at the tide line, whelks are the islands' answer to escargots and often are prepared in a similar manner—steamed in sea water and served with garlic-laden butter.

The happy combination of rice and beans (or "peas," as beans are known on some islands) is popular all over the Caribbean. In Jamaica the beans are red, and the mixture is flavored with coconut cream. In Cuba black beans are served on top of rice, and the combination is known fondly as Moors and Christians. Topped with a fried egg and sautéed plantains, it's a satisfying meal. On some islands the local bean-and-rice variation might be seasoned with sweet peppers and tomatoes, bacon, beef bones, or hot peppers. In Haiti,
djon djon
is rice and a form of lima beans cooked in broth from the earthy, dark mushrooms grown in the Haitian highlands. In the British Virgin Islands, rice snuggles up with pigeon peas, yellow pea-like seeds that originally came from Africa and in some other places are called
gungo, gunga, goonga,
or
Congo peas.

In all the islands, outdoor cooking has been a popular social event since Caribs and Arawaks were the hosts. Given our star-splashed nights, warm tropical beaches, a casual lifestyle, and a party-loving population, it's not surprising that the barbecue grill has little chance to cool off in these islands. What makes BVI barbecues so special is the locally made charcoal. Whereas others may sing the praises of food grilled over mesquite or grape vines, anyone who has been to a fish fry here, with fresh seafood grilled over local charcoal, has experienced a very special treat.

Any discussion of Caribbean tastes is incomplete without a mention of the island libation: rum. Mixed with colorful fruit juices and garnished in sometimes improbable ways, rum is for many visitors one of the most memorable tastes of the tropics.

When we arrived in the British Virgin Islands, about as many people came to the Caribbean for fine dining as went to Paris for the beaches. Like many natural beauties, the islands had gotten along on their looks for years. Dining took a dim second place to the sugary beaches, gin-clear water, and winters full of sunshine that lured the snow-weary visitor. In recent years, though, things have changed, and we've seen restaurants in the Caribbean transformed with a swiftness that in these slow-paced islands is truly remarkable.

Perhaps it began when others took up the banner of Caribbean cuisine and began serving jerked pork,
accras,
and goat stew in such unlikely venues as New York and Los Angeles. Sometimes food has to travel before it gains honor in its own land. Old Caribbean kitchen hands, who'd once imported everything to dazzle their patrons with truffles and flourishes, now began to find inspiration in tropical fruits, fish so fresh it swims into the pan, and seasonings that dance in the mouth with a reggae beat.

Then new young chefs came along who studied ingredients native to their islands and looked for new ways to use them. With intelligence and creativity they began developing elegant new dishes with island pedigrees: duck breast with mango coulis, breadfruit vichyssoise, grilled grouper with tropical fruit salsa, pasta with conch sauce, curried banana soup, soursop gelato, and other intriguing delights. We like to think the Sugar Mill played a role in these changes.

The menu in the Sugar Mill dining room has evolved over the years to take advantage of Caribbean ingredients, and to use them in unexpected ways that reflect our love of fresh and bold flavor combinations. Many years of living in and around the food-loving city of San Francisco led us to create a menu that over the years reviewers have dubbed "California-Caribbean cuisine."

Once the main restaurant began to flourish, we decided the hotel was ready for a second eating spot, and Islands was born. A casual beachside restaurant where lunch is served daily and dinner is available during the winter season, Islands features an all-Caribbean menu. Over the years our travels through the West Indies have led us to discover that each of the lovely dots of land anchored in the Caribbean Sea has its own style of cooking and favorite ingredients. We've recreated much of what we've tasted for the menu at Islands.

In the Caribbean, an eclectic blend of influences from Africa, Asia, Europe, and America has spawned a cuisine featuring vivid seasonings, luscious fruits, spanking fresh seafood, and dramatically prepared meats and poultry that is as colorful and exotic as the islands themselves. Like all exciting cuisines, that of our islands and our restaurants evolves constantly. Each newcomer has brought fresh ideas and new recipes to add to our delicious simmering pot. We hope you'll enjoy the result.

And now, as we say in the Caribbean at carnival time—

"Alay, alay—go eat and have fun."

 

—J
INX AND
J
EFFERSON
M
ORGAN
Tortola, British Virgin Islands