TASTE The BVI
The British Virgin Islands latest cookbook, Taste, showcases the finest dishes from Anegada to Spanish Town to Norman Island and everywhere in between. The project represents, most of all, a collaboration—a collaboration between the restaurants, chefs and resorts who contributed their delectable recipes and opened their kitchens; a collaboration between the islands, with nine of the British Virgin Islands represented in the book; a collaboration between the designers and photographers who have worked together to make this cookbook visually stunning; and a collaboration between the ingredients which will mix together in the kitchens of readers eager to recreate the dishes from their favourite BVI restaurants.
The book opens with a trip to Good Moon Farm in Turnbull Estate where Aragorn Dick-Read grows fresh, organic fruits, vegetables and herbs. This fresh encounter sets the tone for the rest of the cookbook which features recipes with locally available ingredients such as avocado, banana, breadfruit, christophine, conch, key limes, lemongrass, lobster, mango, mint, papaya, pineapple, pumpkin, rabbit, sorrel and tamarind. So aspiring chefs who read the book have an opportunity to make true Caribbean dishes with Caribbean ingredients—learning about how the flavours mingle with each other.
The range of culinary difficulty spans from quick, easy recipes to complex epicurean challenges. Some of the more complicated dishes come from the expected chefs and venues such as Executive Chef Lisa Sellers at Peter Island’s potted rabbit with truffle butter and rabbit spring rolls; Executive Chef at YCCS & Marina, Virgin Gorda Davide Pugliese’s pumpkin-crusted ahi tuna with pumpkin wasabi mousse, spicy baby arugula salad and sorrel foam; and Giorgio Paradisi’s seafood tonnarelli with black red-snapper fagottini. Even more welcome challenges come from unexpected recipes such as daysail yacht Kuralu’s smoked bacon, leek and gruyere quiche, Trellis Kitchen’s famous awesome sandwiches and The Willy-T’s booze-soaked swordfish that requires a flambé technique. But there are still plenty of recipes for those of us who simply want to know how to cook the perfect Anegada lobster, which we learn from Anegada Reef Hotel, or how to denaturize conch, thanks to Executive Chef Andy Niedlander at Scrub Island Resort.
The recipes in this hardcover cookbook highlight delectable, fresh combinations, and the stunning photography captures the joy of eating such dishes in the BVI—so readers who take the book back to their chilly homes can instead imagine eating dinner while watching the sunset from Bananakeet or having a hearty lunch at Cooper Island Beach Club or any of the other dozens of locales who contributed their recipes to Taste.
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