Foods & Recipes 

What kind of food did the Tainos eat?

Taíno staples included vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish. There were no large animals native to the Caribbean, but they captured and ate small animals, such as hutias and other mammals, earthworms, lizards, turtles, and birds.

One of the primary crops cultivated by the Taíno was cassava or yuca, which they ate as a flat bread. They also grew corn, squash, beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, yams, peanuts as well as tobacco. (As an aside I would like to comment that many people in the pre-Columbian Americas had virtually work free agriculture).

The following are instructional internet links to Native Taino/Arawak traditional food and recipes. These links are collected here for educational purposes and convenience and we do not own the rights to any of these provided links.