Levi Roots - Spice It Up

The Caribbean is famous for its spices. Island food is full of fragrant flavours, markets are piled high with vibrant chillies, and warm breezes and trade winds bear the scent of nutmeg and allspice. So, heres my book of easy-to-cook food using my favourite spices to bring new life to popular, everyday ingredients. There are plenty of recipes for everyone some hot, many not but all of them bringing the Caribbean sunshine vibe to your kitchen.

Back in the day, spices used to be as expensive as gold, kept under lock and key, and you can see why. Food can be so bland and normal. The big ingredients the yams and potatoes make up the bulk of what goes into the pot, but its the small ones the nutmeg, the pepper, the cinnamon that create the flavours. Theyre the ones that do the tricks. Look how small cardamom and mustard seeds are, and yet how vivid. From small things come big wonders.

Spices make you imagine where they come from. Caribbean-style recipes and ingredients are bound to get you thinking of being there, living the outdoor life, the party life, and enjoying that laid-back attitude towards cooking.

The wonder of Caribbean food is that its so varied. The motto of Jamaica (where I grew up) is Out of many, one people because there are so many races together on the islands. All these peoples keep their own cuisine and their regional pots. There are lots of Indian people in the Caribbean and they cook traditional Indian food such as Different islands of the Caribbean bear different influences from the British, Spanish and French.

More and more people are seeing that theres nothing strange about Caribbean cuisine they are already using the spices that come from the islands, and have long been cooking the other cuisines, such as Indian and French, that are part of island food. Nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger are already in their storecupboards. The famous Jamaican Scotch bonnet is just a better chilli than the one they might be using, giving another element of taste with its fruity flavour and strong heat.

When you put your mind to Caribbean cooking, it puts your vibe in a different place. You say Im going to cook Caribbean tonight and youre talking about maybe a barbecue perhaps my and probably some sweet stuff. Youre going to be excited because its certainly not going to be boring. You might put on some music to get in the mood, perhaps dress up. In your mind, you are bringing that sunshine island into your front room. And its going to be fun!

When I was growing up in Content, Jamaica, we had the hot spices the ginger and chillies and the flavoursome herb thyme growing wild in our garden. Nutmeg was grown locally, and someone around Content would give us some in exchange for vegetables that we had grown. Then we would go and get other spices from the spice lady or man in the market. We didnt have a spice rack; we would use what we needed and wrap up the rest to put away and use soon. In them days, there wasnt such a thing as a fridge. Everything was pretty fresh bought or gathered and used straightaway. And its best, still, not to keep spices for too long, as they lose some of their power.

Nowadays, I have the spice world in pots on my kitchen shelves. My greatest pleasure is choosing them carefully for each dish. I always say that cooking is like making a piece of music. You lay out the ingredients like an orchestra or a band. The choice that you make is down to what flavours work together and what will complement the main ingredients. The music vibe is the merging and the mixing of these spices.

There are two elements you are thinking of: heat and fragrance. If were talking about chillies and if you want something that is Levi Spice its best to have the Scotch bonnet. But whatever you use, you can turn the heat up or down by choosing to use the hot seeds or not. Whether youre talking about flavour or heat, when it comes to spices, the trick is knowing how to manage them. When youre mixing music, you never put too much volume on to start with you can add a bit more later. Likewise, a spice mixture can be spoiled by adding too much of one thing. You can use two, three or four spices to make a particular combination, but start small you need to balance them out and keep tasting as you go along. A spice like nutmeg can be very strong and take over, and chillies can overpower the other tastes. But get it right and the magic comes.

Cooking with spices is about the smells, the tastes, the look spices such as vanilla pods and star anise are beautiful the textures and the overall sensation. Its about cutting into a Scotch bonnet so that your eyes weep and your mouth waters with anticipation, and you know its going to work because its working even before it goes in the pot. You grate in some nutmeg, that wonderful aroma comes up and you know its going to do the business.

As for preparation, one of my favourite bits of kit in the kitchen is a pestle and mortar. When I was growing up, we had a giant one that was used mainly for pounding coffee. My grandfather would make it from a tree trunk. Hed cut it 3ft high and put hot coals in the top, and it would take a lot of time to keep burning down to make a deep scoop for pounding into. The pestle was a big stick. Us kids would take our turn on it, and I grew up knowing how wonderfully it brought out the flavours of anything wed want to crack, such as pimento seeds (allspice berries) they come alive when you pestle-and-mortar them.

Spices are good in ground form for baking. For other cooking, you can chuck the whole seeds into the pot and release the flavour at a slower rate. But nothing beats grinding spices by hand in a pestle and mortar thats when you really get the aromas. For instance, if you grind pimiento, smells of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves are released that together give it its British name allspice. So if youre really going to enjoy spices, get a pestle and mortar Ive got a wooden one I brought back from Jamaica, which reminds me of the coffee, or use a classic ceramic or stone one. But you dont even need this to have your fun and do the job. My granny used to put all her spicing stuff in a bit of cloth and use the rolling pin to bash it. When she opened it up, it was all done, perfect, old-style.

In my flavour palette for this book, Ive also included the stronger-tasting herbs such as thyme and coriander leaves that are popular in Caribbean cooking. Spices are usually added during the cooking process, whereas herbs are more often than not introduced at the end. Coriander and mint work in a different way to spices, and you want to keep their freshness by adding them last of all. You can also use them in a wet seasoning, crushing thyme with garlic and salt in a pestle and mortar, and adding it to the pot at the start.

My kitchen is full of the good tastes youre about to discover. There are preserves and relishes such as with dried tropical fruit soaked in a whole lot of rum. Its ultimately all about the ingredients and the fun you can have cooking and eating.

Nuff said. Its time to open these pages, open your pots and your taste buds, stir up your senses and spice it up, my friends!