Meat - with the exception of goat - is expensive and most islanders survive on vegetables and delicious variations of chicken and fish; in Cuba, however, pork is a major feature of most cooking.

Unsurprisingly, the region's seafood is excellent, cheap and easy to come by. Popular Caribbean fruits of the sea include lobster, crab, shrimp, blue marlin, kingfish and flying fish - all of which should be sampled at a local weekend fish fry, which is a great opportunity to fill up on the freshest fish for very little money, while soaking in some atmosphere, music and some local rum. The fish is cooked by the road, barbecued, fried or grilled and served with hot cakes - heavy, grilled patties of unleavened bread.

By and large, soups and stews are variations on a theme, based on what's available at the local market on a given day - spiked with onions and peppers and bulked out with "tubers" or root vegetables. No stew would be complete without a bottle of Caribbean hot sauce , developed by the Carib and Arawak Indians who combined hot pepper juice, cassava juice, brown sugar, cloves and cinnamon to produce a thick, tangy sauce for slathering over barbecued fish, chicken and the like.