I don't know what it is with Trinidadian and sauce. We putting sauce on every and anything, we telling the doubles man we want all the sauces, we buy a pizza we loading it ketchup, mustard and pepper, bake and shark with all the sauces. I love the tamarind and chado beni sauces. Even when we are at Subway, some people will say they buy subway for the bread, but I heard most people like subway because of their sauce. We are a 'sauce' people I guess is because of our rich taste for flavor. Some of these sauces we enjoy are of different origins. Garlic sauce has an Syrian origin, because of their love for garlic. However, most of our sauces are of East Indian influence.
Firstly, we have pepper sauce, pepper is a popular seasoning among the East Indian community. 'Hot peppers' also known as habaneros are the main ingredient are minced or chopped and is combined with other local spices,some people even mix it with vegetables. Also there is 'mother in law' another popular are hot peppers mixed with carrots, Carlyle and other spices. There also chutneys that come in different flavors such as; tamarind and mango. Kuchela and anchor are made from some of our local fruits like tamarind, pommecthere and mango.
Who doesn't like desserts, especially when you have a sweet tooth like mine. Some of our local delicacies have both an African and East Indian origin, but for this post I would be naming our African influenced desserts; these include' cassava or coconut pone, sweet bread, bene balls, jub jub, sugar cake, nut cake, chili bibi and fudge. I loveeeeeeeeeeeee sugar cake and fudge. These are mostly prepared and found in our sister isle. You can get these is in a store but if you want the real thing Tobago is the place. I think every Trinidadian when they go to Tobago not only look forward to the crab and dumpling but also the sweets.
The most popular French Créole influence is the language also known as 'patois'. It came about because of our historical background in terms of settlement by persons from the French islands. After the Haitian and French revolution many people migrated from the French islands to Trinidad.Some of our foods have a Créole adaptation such as
Pommeythere - French word is pommel de cy there
Avocado - Zaboka
Other words include; pomerac, chataigne and cerise
asaome of our popular foods include, stewed chicken, oil down and soups. I think the most popular Créole influenced foods are our soups. The word soup comes from the French word 'soup or broth. Soups has become quite a popular dish in Trinidad and varies from cow heel to oxtail and even corn soup with other ingredients such as provision, dumplings and other flavored meats like pigtail.
The British introduced some of their cooking methods such as baking and broiling, so most of our dishes like baked chicken, baked ham, baked beans and even our baked pies like Shepard's pie originated from Britain we have to thank the British for introducing to us. A little history before I continue. The British captured Trinidad in 1799 and negotiated an amicable treaty of rule with the Spanish, then enslaved Africans who were brought into work in the sugar plantations in 1802 and the island become a colony. After slavery was abolished Britain landowners imported thousands of indentured laborers from India, China and the Middle East. In 1889 Britain joined the smaller island Tobago as part of its administration. The islands achieved Independence from England in 1962 and became the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in 1976.
We would be celebrating Christmas in a couple of months and we are definitely looking forward to those delicious foods like pastelles and black cake believe or not the British were the first to introduce Christmas pudding, which we call black cake. In England, Christmas pudding also known as plum pudding is commonly served on Christmas day and goes back to medieval times. The pudding is from dried fruits and eggs and is flavored with different spices , it also has alcohol and can be preserved for months without being refrigerated.That's how we know to put alcohol in our fruit cake so it would stay longer.
The whole world knows how much Trinis love to 'lime' not the fruit lime but in more common terms it means 'hang out', 'socialize', 'get together'. A good 'lime' consists of good company, good food and of course good drinks, must have the drinks. The thing about Trinidadians we use every occasion as an excuse to drink, not just around Carnival and Christmas. We drinking for a birthday celebration, even a child's christening, a cricket lime, a river or beach lime. Where there are drinks there are Trinis. We especially look forward to the end of the work week and its Friday to have a few beers but I know some folks don't wait until its Friday hmmm...
Now for a little history about rum... Rum is made from molasses which is made from sugar cane through a process of fermentation and distillation. Sugar cane was one of the crops cultivated by the Indentured laborers during the late 1800's when they arrived in Trinidad. Years later.... thanks to Angostura we now enjoy White Oak, Puncheon 'fire water', never me again *cough *cough and Black and White.
We took innovation to a whole new level and created a wide variety of drinks with different flavours. We have the non alcoholic beverages for those who can't handle the hard stuff like; Sandy (sorrel, lime and ginger), Ginseng (original, lemon/lime/grape, apple and kola champagne and, Malta and Smalta. For the soft/sweet drink lovers what American would call 'sodas' we have Solo and peardrax both locally made and for the beer lovers Carib and Stag.
Moving away from the alcohol ,to healthier drinks are our punches.Respect to the punch men at every street corner that make our bowels move faster.Oh gosh you can't beat back a barabadine or sour sop punch,tome channa is only to eat with curry ah not drinking it. chains, carrot, seamoss and paw paw are among some favourites. So to the punch men and Angostura, SM Jaleel we salute you as we lift our glasses, here is to being 'Trini'.
The East Indian culture plays an influential role in Trinidad and Tobago food. In a previous post I talked about African influenced breakfast dishes. Now in this post I would talk about breakfast dishes that we enjoy thanks from the East Indian community. I mentioned doubles s a liming food but its also a popular breakfast food. Another, popular dish is sada roti which is s roasted flat bread served with choke. Choka is the name given to anything sauteed and seasoned with black pepper, it can be anything tomato, pumpkin, potato, even bodi or patchoi. Aloo pies is another favorite and can be found in any pie or roti shop or even by the doubles man. Aloe pie is s fried dough with seasoned potato, served with many sauces like chutney or pepper sauce.
Saheena is a paste mixed with split peas and dasheen bush and tastes really good with chutney. Katchori is a seasoned split peas fried into a ball and best eaten with chutney and pepper. Baiganee is a paste like mixture of split pas and egg plant with seasoning it also goes good with chutney.
The Spanish has influenced our culture in many ways. It is especially reflected at Christmas time in our music, song, dance and even our food. Popular foods such s carambola, sapodilla, granadilla, cassava bread, sancocho or sancoche and the most popular of them all pastelles. Pastelles originally were called 'hallaca' from Venezuela. Patella has its origins in the Spanish colonized who came from South America in the 16th or 17th century.
Pastelles is most popular dish around Christmas time and Trinidadian love to eat
pastelles with chow chow, ketchup or garlic sauce.
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