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Motherland by Melissa Thompson | Waterstones

Melissa Thompson is a food writer and recipe developer based in London, of Jamaican and Maltese heritage, she is a former newspaper journalist and restaurateur. She has written for BBC Good Food, The Guardian, Condé Nast Traveler, Stylist and more. It is often said that food is a direct way of understanding and connecting with other places, peoples and cultures, and this can indeed be true, but you do need to be willing to learn more than recipes for that. And Melissa Thompson’s Motherland is a truly exceptional book, telling the story of Jamaica through its food, which cannot be separated from its history. About this Thompson is direct and — rightly — unsparing, and yet she manages to bring such joy at the same time: this is a true celebration of Jamaican food and Jamaica, not an airbrushed, whitewashed version. Melissa Thompson's Motherland is a truly exceptional book, telling the story of Jamaica through its food, which cannot be separated from its history. About this Thompson is direct and - rightly - unsparing, and yet she manages to bring such joy at the same time: this is a true celebration of Jamaican food and Jamaica, not an airbrushed, whitewashed version. I marvel at this book, a beautiful product itself: it manages to combine a matter-of-fact honesty and illuminating attention to detail with such warmth and joy and - this is, after all a cookbook - deep deliciousness'

Leyla and Robbie sit down to taste some smoky drinks, while pondering the future of traditional methods, and how to balance the world’s love for peated whiskies with peatland restoration. Motherland is a cookbook that charts the history of the people, influences and ingredients that uniquely united to create the wonderful patchwork cuisine that is Jamaican food today, it doesn’t shy away from the brutality of the colonial periods but takes us on a journey through more than 500 years of history to give context to the beloved island and its cuisine. Sharon Horgan’s angry baby is as biting as ever when skewering narcissistic middle-class mums. But it could make its white characters squirm a bit more Patchwork seems the perfect description for a cuisine that has taken many different influences – from the island's earliest known settlers, who farmed cassava, which remains one of Jamaica's staple crops, to the Spanish colonialists, who introduced sugar cane to the Caribbean – and stitched them together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

Motherland: A Jamaican Cookbook by Melissa Thompson Book review: Motherland: A Jamaican Cookbook by Melissa Thompson

We love a book that challenges us, and if you've made Jamaican food before or have the cooking intuition built up to read between the lines you'll be rewarded. While we wouldn't recommend it to beginners, we'll be keeping Motherland around as a reference to Jamaican flavor profiles. Motherland is a recipe book, but more than that it is a history of the people, influences and ingredients that uniquely united to create the wonderful patchwork cuisine that is Jamaican food today," writes Melissa Thompson in the introduction to her debut cookbook. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{

We hear from producers bringing diverse barbecue and smoking techniques to new audiences, as well as those keeping traditional processes alive. And while many would perhaps prefer to think of this ‘fusion' cuisine apolitically, neither the history nor cuisine of Jamaica can be discussed without considering the effects of slavery. As Thompson explains, the food of Jamaica "is a beautiful product of this violent chapter in world history". Author of the Barbecue Bible and Project Smoke, Steven Raichlen, traces the history of smoking from its Palaeolithic origins to present day, and argues that cooking with fire was one of the greatest technological advances in the history of humankind. Although Motherland remains Sharon Horgan’s angry baby, this is the first series in which she is credited as a producer and not a writer. Happily, the rest of the season two team – Holly Walsh, Helen Serafinowicz and Barunka O’Shaughnessy – have done a solid job of retaining Horgan’s signature blend of comedy: lacerating, farcical, painfully British (although, of course, Horgan is Irish). It is as if you can sense the attempt with each killer line – the tragedy of your kids going off you when you fart in front of them, say – to induce the giant, dirty Horgan laugh we know so well from Catastrophe. A cookbook charting 500 years of influence on the vibrant cuisine of Jamaica, written by acclaimed food writer Melissa Thompson.