As far back as the 19th century, European imagination was spilling all over when people used to talk about this part of the planet that Admiral Christopher Columbus had helped put on the map in boldface letters when he wrote in his diary, “I beheld so many islands that I couldn't just pick which one I was to visit first.”

Overwhelmed by findings and surprises, he went on to scribble: “I wanted to go there to set foot on land and take a closer look at so much beauty. I had seen a cape as green and beautiful as it can get, as all other things around these lands and islands are. I didn't know for sure which of them I was supposed to go to first. My eyes never get weary of beholding so many green and diverse beauties all around.”

The promised land, the lost paradise so full of charms, was exposing itself to the eyes of Europeans. Our lavish nature was giving chroniclers of the Indies an assortment of incredible views that some of them even depicted in full details:

“The Indians' bread is called maize…” “The Indian's bread called caçabi….” “The plant of garlic is another great food…” “The plant of batata provides good garments…” “The cassava plant, which is a kind of tall shrub, Indians here use it to cook stews…”

The Caribbean, the first territory Spanish conquistadors found when they got to the New World, was a place where cuisine couldn't be any better at the time. Spices and certain foodstuffs were the first trading items these men knew.

From that moment onward, the dishes we eat today have been delicious enough to lure travelers to flock to these lands. But there's another Caribbean product that shares the limelight with scenery and food in this neck of the woods: music.

The original chants, dances and drum beatings performed by indigenous dwellers of these lands were little by little blending with rhythms brought by the colonizers.

Music from Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, England and Netherlands, just to name but a few European sources, were tossed into the melting pot of cultures that was taking a slow burn in the Caribbean.

As centuries went by, ingredients chipped in by Yorubas, Congos, Carabalis, Bambaras, Beriberis, Angolans, Achantis and many other African civilizations were added. There's no doubt imagination was the basic cultural ruse used by those who had been literally plucked out of their lands, stripped of their material belongings and brought to the New World aboard ships with no clothes, yet full of ideas and thoughts.

That's how the melting pot produced this magnificent ajiaco (stew), as put by Don Fernando Ortiz, one of the all-time greatest connoisseurs of the Cuban culture.

In his work entitled Human Factors of Cuban Identity, he described that particular dish with these words: “It's the most typical and most complex stew made of different vegetables, root vegetables and chunks of different meats. The whole mixture is cooked in boiling water until a thick broth is achieved, then it's seasoned with Cuban pepper (called aji in Spanish), thus forming the word ajiaco. “People scoop from the pot what they want to eat; the leftovers are put aside for future meals. “The following day, the ajiaco takes a new cooking dimension. More water is poured into the pot, as well as more vegetables and critters, only to be boiled again with far more pepper. And that's how, day after day, the unclean pot whose unscratched bottom is brimming with dregs of that thick broth, is once again ready to please patrons with a far tastier sauce and spicier flavor, though the taste of pepper is somewhat gone.”

This exquisite definition gives food to our thoughts and makes us think of the numerous ingredients that have been added to the Caribbean cuisine through the years, a culture seasoned by music and dancing in a nonstop fruition process.

In this region, people dance and eat and relish the spilling sauce that dribbles out of the swinging hips, shoulders, hands and faces of those who shake a leg. It's all fun that can be both tasted and watched at the same time.

No wonder that in our music, themes about food are used by performers to arouse a sense of sensuality and sexuality that is felt and breathed up in the air.

“If you wanna get my fish, I'll give it to ya,” says the lyrics of a Cuban song. In Haiti, people belt it out this way: “Boutèy mantèg la chèch, Li genyen grès tande (the bottle of lard seems dry, but it's greasy instead). “Gimme your honey” is a tune sung by Panama's Manuel Orestes Nieto.

Food, a basic thought for those who have had the need to get by, is the main theme that has sprung up from the bottom of these Caribbean lands:

“Who has seen a Negro like me / who has seen a Negro like me / eating potatoes, lettuce, pumpkin and okra?,” goes a song in Puerto Rico.

Pop culture has since long marked our Caribbean region. We can't think of any of our countries and islands being deprived of the traces and footprints that our humblest dwellers have left along the way. Our music is teeming with the sounds and beats of conucos, solares, corner jams, funeral chants and so many other popular scenes. In them, the topic of food pops up time and again, as if it were trying to underscore the desires and scarcities of the population.

“Vale travay ou, travay, ou pa ka manje” (You've worked and worked, but you can't eat) says this Haitian tune.

Eating and singing seem to be a permanent presence in our region.

The outcries used by street vendors to hawk their goods in these lands have also served to make music. Fruits, pastries, fritters and all kinds of tidbits help peddlers make ends meet and bring home the bacon.

From one Veracruz café, people still can hear the echoes of Augustin Lara's voice crooning a song that goes like this:

“I bring you coconuts / who wanna buy them for me? / sweet milk coconuts / of sweet and clear milk,” and then turned to one or two romantic tunes: “Some people say / coconut milk is haunted / if that were the case / I'd give some to the girl I love.”

Verbs like eat, sing and love define the existence of the Caribbean's humblest people, as a way of stressing their way of being and living in this world, as a way of sweetening the bitterness of life. In them, we have come into a cultural inheritance full of values that belong to no one else but us.

The lyrics of A Beautiful Bunch of Ripe Bananas, that have for centuries made the lives of laborers and wetbacks less miserable in the banana plantations, was put on the map by the great Harry Belafonte.

Whoever arrives in the Caribbean, is welcomed by a popular phrase: “The table is served.” When you hear that, all you need to do is do exactly as another popular song says: “Let's Eat!”