Virginia Book

I like learning about a new cuisine through cookbooks first, rather than just exploring recipes online, to get a better sense of common ingredients and which dishes are served at which sorts of meals, etc. It was difficult to find many Haitian cookbooks, but this one was so good I'm not sure I'd bother with others.

The author is Puerto Rican and began exploring Haitian food through her husband and his family so these are definitely home cooking dishes, not fancy hotel food for tourists. I like the snippets of stories that go with the recipes and everything I've cooked from it so far has been delicious.

I may find myself going through this cookbook dish by dish, which I can't say for many of the ones I own. We've already found ourselves going back to some from that first meal for birthdays and other special occasions.

There are a few more complicated dishes, but the explanations are very clear and they're generally the traditional special occasion ones. Many are pretty economical as well, though there are a few recipes I doubt I'll be able to do in Chicago just because I don't have access to conch or local ingredients like djon djon mushrooms. I like that there are often alternative options for the quick & easy (use canned goods) or traditional (start with dry beans from scratch, etc.) methods.