SELECT COOKBOOKS
2025 Cookbooks
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Code Noir: Afro-Caribbean Stories and Recipes by Lelani Lewis (Tra Publishing 2024) Through 80+ recipes, Code Noir tells the interesting and complex story of Caribbean cuisines that are not only rich in flavor but also in history.
NCAFFA Caribbean Cooks & Books Review:
Let’s start with this book’s beautiful cover where the O in Noir serves as a bangle, as we would say in the Caribbean, and the peppers held aloft add a meaningful point of reference and color. Beautiful pictures jump off the pages throughout the book, with great enticing recipes Each is preceded by its Caribbean history and following the ingredients is a helpful “You’ll also need” section. There is no “half-stepping” here. This book draws you in, gets into your head like that refrain you can’t forget, and promises to deliver.
For those who read cookbooks like novels, here is a cookbook with a story. Your curiosity gets the best of you as you plunge headlong into exploring why the author chose this title. Obviously, you know it’s about Afro-Caribbean recipes, but does the title touch on a special communication (code) about black (noir) food? Or does it promise to tap into familiar or unfamiliar sources (code) to present new interpretations by a confident voice in black food? This book does both while introducing you to the 260-year-old French regulation, Code Noir, which detailed how enslaved Africans were to be punished, controlled and fed among other things. The author then illuminates how over time with limited resources spectacular dishes including national dishes emerged from these beginnings.
Here is the great upside to this cookbook. It challenges you as to which recipes to try first. Caution, if you love to cook, don’t read while hungry with a pantry full of ingredients. You won’t know where to start. You might fantasize about seeing it all prepared and spread out before you in a tasting bounty. Or you consider duplicating one of the meals described by the author, where each course tells Caribbean culinary history starting with the influences of the Indigenous people to the Europeans to the Africans and to the Asians. This is my advice since you’ve got to start somewhere–you can’t keep flipping back and forth. If there is something you’re trying to master, then just check it out here. Mine are codfish fritters and corn bread in homage to my combined Caribbean and southside Chicago heritage and lived experiences. After those two, I’ll be able to exhale. Listen for the chime—like me, you’re now free to roam.
Haiti Uncovered: A Regional Adventure into the Art of Haitian Cuisine by Nadege Fleurimond (Author)
(10th anniversary edition Hardcover – 2024). This is a culinary coffee table book that embraces the regional cuisine and cooking traditions of Haiti through the author’s personal journey, insights and recipes. It delves into the art of Haitian Cuisine and brings into focus he beauty of Haiti through its diverse culinary traditions while offering to Haitians and non-Haitians an opportunity to explore and learn about Haiti as a whole. This beautifully bound and illustrated, hard cover book, aims to present and represent the history, dishes, recipes and cooking traditions of the people of Haiti throughout the various regions. It is a conscious and determined effort by the author to present a personal journey, yet to create something that is both accurate and lasting.
NCAFFA Caribbean Cooks & Books Review:
Since NCAFFA and ICS will be in conversation with Chef and author, Nadege Fluerimond, this will be followed by a full review. Suffice it to say that Haitian cuisine is not well known. It’s the world’s loss. While we as Caribbeans cannot fix this overnight, NCARW partners recognized that the timing is right to open this door and “ease on down the road.” Like Haitian art, Haitian cuisine is varied, flavorful, and deeply creative, and Chef Fluerimond’s talents, energy and vibrancy make her the right conductor on this journey.
Understandably, many won’t know what to expect on this journey. My advice is to reset your mind. Luckily, I was introduced to Haitian cooking through a Haitian friend, an excellent cook, who annually hosted a special lunch in celebration of the DC Caribbean Carnival. With each bite, I remember being happily perplexed wondering how these dishes differed so much from other Caribbean dishes when often using some of the same ingredients and given Haiti’s proximity to the rest of us. So, let’s forgive others for not knowing that they don’t know. I was there once.
2024 Cookbooks
Caribbean Flavors for Every Season: 85 Coconut, Ginger, Shrimp, and Rum Recipes
by Brigid Washington, Nina Compton (Foreword by)
This innovative cookbook presents a new way to look at the four seasons through four ingredients that are integral to Caribbean flavors and culture, but available everywhere.