Mauritius

The dodo is gone but Mauritius remains - a volcanic island in the southwestern Indian Ocean that has been, successively, Dutch, French and British, and is now entirely itself: a multiethnic, multilingual, middle-income country that produces sugar, textiles, financial services and a cuisine that is the direct result of all those overlapping histories. The food alone - dholl puri, bol renverse, mine frite - is the story of the island in edible form. Beyond the resort strip, the island is smaller and more various than the brochures suggest.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: Port Louis market routes, the Black River Gorges, Creole heritage guesthouses and the street food vendors whose dholl puri has been pulled from the same griddle for thirty years.