Trinidad and Tobago

Some notes on Trinidad and Tobago, from which I just returned after experiencing Carnaval. (Quick summary: Trinis know how to party.)

1) Trinidad has a rather fascinating polyglot culture of Indian, creole, and pan-Caribbean influences, but coherent and meaningful flavors in the supposed national dishes continually eluded me. Take the Bake ‘n’ Shark, which on paper sounds like the most brilliant fish taco ever conceived: fried chunks of shark and some vegetal manner for textural contrast (generally, tomatoes and/or coleslaw) stuffed between something along the lines of Indian fry bread. But all four variations of the dish I had were more like a Chalupa than anything: just a sloppy mix of semi-interesting gunk slapped between over-fried bread. The sammich clearly needs something piquant for the whole combination to work, though maybe conext is everything: everyone always says that the best bake and shark is found at Maracas Beach, 15 miles to the north of Port of Spain, and I can see why having the beach in the background would help.

2) I stuck to street vendors for most of my food in Port of Spain, the capital of the islands, and did not experience the formal Indian cuisine of the island—Indian and West Indians make up 40% or so of the population—but I was disappointed with what I found. “Rotis,” a common snack food, were burrito-like and –sized concoctions of roti skin stuffed with a protein, potatoes, and the au jus—drunk people’s food, essentially. Pholourie, little fried balls of chickpea, epitomized what seems to be missing: a really lack of pronounced flavors, and a pronounced lack of salt. You know, color. The same can be said of the creole food we had at the “Breakfast Shed,” an outdoor food court downtown with a dozen stalls of grandma cooking: soulful and hearty—lots of starches, collard greens, and meat on the bone—but really lacking vitality.

3) The lone exception on this trip was a popular breakfast snack known as “Doubles,” which plays the role of T’n’T’s taco: two thin ovals of fried bread, layered with a goo of channa, curry, and dhal, as well as the addition of a spicy or sweet chutney. I had Doubles a number of times over the course of a long weekend and felt that a sweet mango chutney—rather than a cloying pepper sauce—really made the flavors pop. Incidentally, the best Doubles in the Port of Spain area are at the airport: a guy just outside at the far west end of the terminal—look for the motley mix of pilots, cabbies, and fresh-off-the-plane ex-pats—is dishing out some seriously good food for $0.50 a round.

4) Trinbagoans love—love!—fried chicken; I’ve never ever seen a fervor quite like it. The source of the love is mostly directed at KFC, even over a local chain called Royal Castle: the biggest and most popular KFCs in the world are here. Really. Even more intriguing: the KFC down here uses fresh local chickens, and claims to have a different spice mixture—we had to try it, you know? While I can’t confirm the latter, it can be said that the chicken is tautologically chicken, pleasantly reminding me of eating the Colonel in the 1980s before they extra-crispified everything.

5) Re: Tobago, We stayed in a fishing village on the west side of the island called Castara, one also popular enough with travelers to sustain several no-frills restaurants that modestly offer that idealized island life aura. It helps that the hamlet makes locavorism appear elemental: boats go out, catch fish, and chop them up for the local residents and restaurants; the roosters and goats meandering about town also end up on the menu. They caught shark on Friday, so we ate that for dinner; they caught tuna on Saturday, so we had that. All of the restaurants offered a basic sort of “meat-and-three:” you selected your protein and received a plate bursting with bits of everything—your protein, a rice, a salad, some greens, a lentil of some sort, and so on. The best of this sort in Castara was at Marguarite’s Local Cuisine, where the goat meal featured chunks of the animal in an ingenious sour curry with tamarind and hyssop notes, as well as some deeply soulful pigeon peas; the Roadside Café across the street had a tuna dish the next night that somehow made overcooking a strength, giving the barbecued fish a shredded, smoky patina. It’s closest antecedent was a BBQ pork sandwich I had at A&R Barbecue in Memphis a few weeks back.

6) Trinbagoans love sweets—a little too much, methinks, but they are everywhere, and in every form, including gazillions of kinds of crackers, cookies, candies and so on. They particularly are proud of their ice cream, and many places advertise homemade confections; we had some guava on the beach in Tobago that really deftly balanced fruit flavors and cream essence. But some of the store-bought sugar snacks were intolerably sweet.

7) This country also has the most diverse array of soda drinks I’ve yet seen, including a carob and sorrel beer that many were drinking during Jouvert and S’malta, a soda emulating malt alcoholic beverages (tres post modern!). Mauby, the island favorite, is a bit of a headtripper: think ginger ale…if it were flavored with tamarind and molasses. Barky!

Great report; Trinidad is one of my favorite places. I'd love to hear more about Carnaval itself. Did you have any LLB (Lemon Lime Angostura Bitters)? I enjoyed all of the Hindu (self-labeled) cuisine, and found the island takes on Italian food to be surprisingly good as well, like carbonara with scotch bonnet peppers, and red sauce with fresh tomatoes and allspice. I don't think it's an ultimate culinary destination, but it's certainly a mix you don't find anywhere else.

Thanks for the report. A place I've never been but would love to visit.

You report is especially interesting in the context of LTH. Over the years many have posted on here that "what Chicago really needs" is a Trini place serving rotis like they had somewhere in NY. And, as with many such observations, we actually have that place, Cafe Trinidad. As someone who's never been to T&T, it's interesting to read a chef's impressions of the food, particularly because you don't appear to have gone in with a strong impression of what it was or would be like.

I'm a fan of Trini rotis and those I've had here in in NY are quite a bit better than what you've described. Lack of flavor or heat would be the last thing I'd describe as a problem. I wonder if they actually dial up the heat here for US tastes.

When you say 40% of the population is West Indian, do you mean East Indian? I'd think everyone is West Indian and that a large portion is ethnically South Asian/"East Indian".

Last, the malta you described is actually very common throughout the Caribbean and dates back to the early 20th century. Breweries sold the malt beverage to locals as a cheap source of calories. It remains very popular in Cuban and Puerto Rican households, usually given to kids to fatten them up. Any Puerto Rican store in Chicago will have several brands of malta. It's an acquired taste I never got.

Thanks again for the fascinating post.

Santander wrote:Great report; Trinidad is one of my favorite places. I'd love to hear more about Carnaval itself. Did you have any LLB (Lemon Lime Angostura Bitters)? I enjoyed all of the Hindu (self-labeled) cuisine, and found the island takes on Italian food to be surprisingly good as well, like carbonara with scotch bonnet peppers, and red sauce with fresh tomatoes and allspice. I don't think it's an ultimate culinary destination, but it's certainly a mix you don't find anywhere else.

There was actually something like a bitters shortage, if you can believe it. Moreover, this is quite the beer drinking country, as I'm sure you saw.

Would have never thought to try Italian food here, as the local pizza looked particularly gross: I understand that they put ketchup and mustard on it.

My best friend from childhood married a Trini girl and the wedding was held at the Asa Wright Nature Sanctuary in Trini's rainforest nearly ten years ago. We spent a few days before the wedding in Port of Spain, including an excursion to Maracas beach. I thought the bake 'n' shark I had there was fabulous. The stand we chose had a table of some 30 different add ons you could slip into the bake with the shark. Of course, as you speculate, the experience was greatly enhanced by washing it down with a cold bottle of Carib lager while sitting under a palm tree on a nearly deserted beach ringed by moody hills.