ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 employs the methodology of ‘ventriloquism’ in order to examine the role of enslaved and former enslaved cooks in the kitchens of British and Spanish colonists. Drawing on a wide range of documents such as colonists’ accounts, cookery books, short stories, and others, it focuses on the instructions and norms that cooks were expected to follow and highlights the degree of freedom, within limits, that the enslaved and formerly enslaved gradually acquired in choosing, preparing, and serving food to their masters. Despite their subaltern positions and the violence used to ‘teach’ the enslaved what their owner wanted, the chapter emphasises the degree of the enslaved agency and shows how the working and social space of the kitchen was central in the emergence of various Caribbean cuisines.
