Among the 7,000 islands stretching over 2,500 square miles, there are dozens of island countries in the Caribbean. Each has its unique style of cooking techniques, using many of the same ingredients found throughout the Caribbean, such as chili peppers (Scotch Bonnet being one of the most popular), bread fruit, conch (a large sea snail), corn, grouper, red snapper, guava, mango, coconuts, rum, passion fruit, pigeon peas, peanuts, plantains, rice and yams.
Many of the signature dishes -- such as red snapper stew, goat curry, peanut chicken stew, peas and rice, Caribbean potato salad, fried okra and rice, and rum cake -- are also called Creole cuisine. The cooking techniques and ingredients used to make these dishes were influenced by the Ciboney (the earliest inhabitants of the Caribbean islands), West African slaves, and Europeans and Far Eastern settlers, including the British, Spanish, Dutch, French, Indian and Chinese.