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Tropical cuisine: cooking in clare’s kitchen is the first comprehensive reference cookbook for tropical cooking – a kitchen essential for all lovers of tropical produce and tropical cuisines.
Full of the beautiful and striking photography of Alison George, hardcover and clothbound, it contains:
- 250+ recipes
- 30+ ingredients profiled in an Essentials chapter
- an A to Z of tropical produce chapter which covers identifying, selecting, storing, preparing and cooking 50+ fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices
Barron Falls above Cairns, QLD © Clare Richards
The tropics include some of the most exciting and influential cuisines on the planet. Many of these cuisines have been bought to tropical Australia with the early settlers and indentured labourers of the North.
The mark of these influences is found in the produce grown, ways of cooking and preserving foods, classic local recipes, the incorporation of ‘exotic’ ingredients into British and European cooking methods in tropical Australia, and the presence of Asian cooking techniques, recipes and ingredients.
This cocktail of climate, food history and local produce gives tropical Australians amazing opportunities for exciting home cooking and kitchen gardening.
Local fruits, start of the wet season © Catseye Productions
When I first moved north of the Tropic of Capricorn seven years ago to Broome in Western Australia, I discovered a local food culture completely different to that of the Southern states. I fell in love with the rich heritage, food traditions and glorious terrain of this part of the world.
In addition to the British and Mediterranean foundations with which I was familiar, there was also a diverse range of Asian influences. These influences have not sprung up from well-travelled chefs, but from the early history of Asian migrants to tropical Australia.
The interaction of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and early Asian, European and British migrants has shaped the heritage, and so the everyday food of many people for whom this part of the world is home.
Particularly in Queensland, there are also longstanding and vibrant communities from the island nations to our north and east, from Papua New Guinea across through the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa and the Cook Islands.
Hunters Creek, north of Broome, Dampier Peninsula, WA © Clare Richards
In addition to this rich history of tropical Australia, over the last 30 years or so a great range of tropical fruit trees have been planted in both commercial orchards and backyards.
Throughout the same period of time, far more Australians have travelled to other tropical zones of the world, and a new wave of Asian migrants have settled in tropical Australia.
All of these factors combine to give us an exciting range of produce and knowledge to use and shape how we garden, buy, cook and eat in this part of the world.
© Clare Richards 2009 – 2010