Exploring Caribbean Food, Island by Island

When the chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph was opening Canje in Austin, Texas, in 2021, he did something he had yet to do as a restaurant owner: He decided to tell his own story. Namely, the story of growing up in Georgetown, Guyana, a South American country with deep ties to the Caribbean through food and culture.

Ten years earlier, when Mr. Bristol-Joseph moved to Austin, he couldn’t find a single Caribbean restaurant. So for the Canje menu, he added pepperpot, a Guyanese dish of long-simmered beef with earthy spices like cinnamon and allspice, and heat from Guyanese wiri wiri peppers. The only problem was he didn’t have cassareep, a bitter cassava juice that the dish needed to truly taste of Guyana.

So, he called his cousin there, and “he put me in touch with another cousin who makes it, and they shipped it to me in Austin,” Mr. Bristol-Joseph said. “I wanted to showcase Caribbean food in the most respectful and authentic way I could’ve.”

About 46 percent of Black immigrants in the United States — some two million people — are from the Caribbean, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that tracks immigration patterns. They come from 13 countries, over an area larger than Texas and Alaska combined, stretching from the Bahamas to South America. Despite that size and diversity, the Caribbean and its cooking are often talked about in broad, regional terms.

“The Caribbean is not a monolith. It’s beautifully different, and there’s unity in that diversity,” said Brigid Ransome-Washington, the author of “Coconut. Ginger. Shrimp. Rum: Caribbean Flavors for Every Season.” But despite that variation, she said, the food is too often translated as “simple, fruit-forward or tourist-friendly fare.”