A Jamaican home cookbook
Auntie Ivy's Jamaican Cookbook is 112 recipes for the food that actually gets eaten — breakfast that carries you to the afternoon, Saturday soup, Sunday dinner, the things sold at the roadside — with a full-page photograph for every one. It's a 403-page PDF that reads on a phone, a tablet or a computer.
"Anybody can follow a recipe. What I'm giving you is the part nobody wrote down."From the opening chapter
I · Why recipes go wrong
A recipe can give you the weight of the onion to the gram and never warn you about the one thing that will spoil the dish. Jamaican food goes wrong in three places.
The seasoning
The curry powder has to cook in hot oil before the meat goes in. Browning has to go almost black before it's done. The book tells you what each looks and smells like at the moment it's ready.
The timing
Same pot, opposite dishes. The coconut milk in a rundown has to break before the fish goes in, and oxtail can't be hurried. Every recipe says what to wait for, not only how long.
The shop
Ackee, saltfish, pimento, coco, dasheen, breadfruit. The pantry says what each one is, how to buy it and keep it, and says so honestly when there's no good substitute.
II · What you get for $34
112 recipes in twelve chapters, from morning food to drinks, each with a full-page photograph.
22 pages on the ingredients people get stuck on — what each is, how to buy it, how to keep it, and what to do when you can't find it.
Seasoning for meat and fish, wet jerk marinade, dry jerk rub, escovitch pickle, scotch bonnet pepper sauce, browning, curry powder, and coconut milk from a dry coconut.
A short note on almost every recipe: what it should look, smell or sound like, and the mistake people make.
By ingredient, and by occasion — breakfast, Saturday soup, Sunday dinner, Christmas, Easter and roadside food.
Tap it on your phone or tablet and it takes you straight there.
III · The recipes
These are the real chapter and recipe names from the book.
Before the recipes: Where This Comes From · The Pantry · The Pot and the Fire · How to Read These Recipes. After them: The Last Thing · Index by Ingredient · Index by Occasion.
Chapter One 14 recipes
Chapter Two 9 recipes
Chapter Three 10 recipes
Chapter Four 12 recipes
Chapter Five 5 recipes
Chapter Six 9 recipes
Chapter Seven 10 recipes
Chapter Eight 8 recipes
Chapter Nine 7 recipes
Chapter Ten 8 recipes
Chapter Eleven 10 recipes
Chapter Twelve 10 recipes
IV · A look at the pages
Every recipe starts on a fresh page, ingredients first, steps numbered underneath, with its photograph on the page before it. It reads well on a tablet propped up by the stove.
V · What this book gets right
Here is exactly what this book is and isn't.
VI · Is it for you
"At home you cook for the people in the house and you can take as long as you like. In a kitchen you cook the same dish four hundred times and you find out what actually matters in it."
Auntie Ivy
Ivy was born and raised in Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica, and learned to cook standing at her mother's elbow. She moved to Brooklyn in her twenties and cooked in Brooklyn kitchens for thirty years, including a Jamaican restaurant. This book is both of those educations written down.
VII · Questions
Yes. It's a PDF, so it opens on any phone, tablet or computer. It's about 42 MB because of the photographs, so it's worth downloading on wifi.
One PDF: 403 pages, 112 recipes, 112 full-page photographs, the pantry guide and both indexes. Gumroad delivers it the moment you pay, and the download link is emailed to you as well.
Yes. Read the pantry first, then start with anything from Morning Food or Rice, Peas and Ground Provisions. Each recipe says what to look for as you go, not just what to do.
Most of them, at a Caribbean or international grocer. The pantry covers every ingredient you're likely to get stuck on — what it is, where to look, and what to use when you can't find it.
No, it's a PDF only. You can print any pages you like.
Checkout and delivery are handled by Gumroad, a digital storefront. You pay through their secure checkout and the download link arrives by email straight away.
Email auntieivysupport@gmail.com within 7 days of buying and you'll get a full refund.
Sunday dinner starts here
403 pages. 112 recipes. 112 photographs. A 22-page pantry. Instant download, yours to keep.
Regular price $56 $34 Launch promo · limited time
Instant PDF download · Reads on phone, tablet and computer · Secure checkout via Gumroad
Before you go
Ackee and saltfish, oxtail, curry goat, rice and peas and the rest — each on its own page with a photograph, plus a pantry guide for the ingredients people get stuck on.
Instant PDF download · 7-day money-back guarantee