Another starter to a Caribbean meal is crudités (raw vegetables, such as bamboo shoots, palm cabbage, palm hearts, breadfruit and papaw) in vinaigrette, served with the famous acras and accompanied by féroce (spiced avocado purée, with salt cod). Other starters include stuffed avocados, the highly seasoned Creole pudding and omelettes made with shellfish, pisquettes, or pineapple.
Fish and seafood are a speciality, usually simmered in a marinade of lime and pimiento seasoned with spices. Fish (fried, marinated, or stuffed), spiny lobsters, crabs (stuffed or cooked in a stew) and molluscs (lambis) are taditionally served, as are meats, with rice and red beans. among the most exotic recipes are smoked fish with mangoes, bass with ginger and sopito, a kind of bouillabaisse made with coconut milk.
Meat dishes are prepared using the same variety and richness of spices. In the French Antilles, curry and calumba are used with beef, chicken and mutton. Vegetables are prepared in traditional ways. In Jamaica, curried young goat is served with unripe bananas and saffron rice.
Besides the classic tropical fruits, the sapodilla plum should be mentioned, as well as the custard apple and cinnamon apple. Fruit salads, compotes, jellies ans jams, flans and blancmanges (flavoured with coconut, vanilla and cinnamon), soufflés and very sweet fritters, all flavoured with rum,are themost popular desserts.
