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Indigenous Caribbean Foodways — a note

Comparison

⚠ THE HARDEST EVIDENCE PROBLEM IN THIS FILE. The TAÍNO and other Arawakan peoples of the Greater Antilles and the KALINAGO (Island Carib) of the Lesser Antilles were devastated within decades of 1492 by violence, forced labour and disease. ⚠ "EXTINCTION" IS THE WRONG WORD AND THIS SYSTEM DOES NOT USE IT: Taíno ancestry is documented in the modern populations of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, communities self-identify, and a KALINAGO TERRITORY exists in Dominica today. What IS documented archaeologically and historically: cassava and its detoxification, the CONUCO mound-farming system, maize, sweet potato, peppers, peanut, guava, pineapple, fish and shellfish, and the BARBACOA and the CANOA and the HURACÁN — words the whole world now uses. ⚠ WHAT IS NOT DOCUMENTED IS RECIPES, and this system does not invent them. Claims of unbroken culinary descent from Taíno cooking to a modern dish are recorded as uncertain unless the evidence is specific.

Atlas — where and when

Communities and languages

  • Taíno community documented
  • Kalinago community documented

Languages: Taino, Island Carib

What is recorded

  • Taíno and other Arawakan populations of the Greater Antilles and Kalinago populations of the Lesser Antilles were devastated within decades of 1492. Taíno ancestry is documented in the modern populations of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, communities self-identify, and a Kalinago Territory exists in Dominica. Documented Indigenous contributions include cassava and its detoxification, conuco mound agriculture, maize, sweet potato, peppers, guava and pineapple, and the words barbacoa, canoa and huracán. Specific recipes are not documented and are not reconstructed here. documented
  • Taíno and Kalinago societies across the Antilles, with cassava, the conuco mound-farming system, maize, sweet potato and a trade network across the island chain. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

Recorded as relating to this foodway

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.