facebook.com/suneatersorganics).A unique and addictive blend of African, Indian, Chinese, European and Latin American influences, the fantastic cuisine of Trinidad and Tobago is a highlight of any visit to the islands. It’s hard to overemphasize the centrality of food to local culture; a true Trinbagonian would never lime (the local word for socializing) without a full stomach. Many leisure activities – beach days, river limes – revolve around the preparation and consumption of food and drink, and it’s rare to visit a private home without being offered something to eat.
Even in T&T’s larger hotels and international-style restaurants, Trinbagonian cuisine hasn’t been dumbed down for visitors, and you’re likely to be offered dishes from the vast array of local food. Due to the islands’ diverse heritage, “local” can mean anything from Indian curry and roti to Creole coocoo and oil down or Spanish and South American-style pastelles (cornmeal patties filled with ground meat or fish, olives and raisins, steamed in a banana leaf and traditionally eaten at Christmas time).
Cooks in T&T have a far lighter hand with hot pepper than you might expect, preferring the delicate flavours of fresh herbs such as chives (aka spring/green onions), thyme and the ubiquitous coriander-like chadon beni. Heat is usually added later at the table, in liberal dashes of fiery hot-pepper sauce. If you don’t like things too hot, remember to say so when buying takeaway, or your meal may be automatically smothered with pepper sauce. If you like things just a little spicy, ask for “slight pepper”.
There’s a burgeoning restaurant culture in Trinidad’s urban areas, with Port of Spain and San Fernando in particular replete with everything from casual diners to world-class gourmet establishments, with some stylish places to enjoy Indian, Creole, Chinese and international cuisine. You’ll also find a huge lunchtime variety in Trinidad’s larger shopping malls, where food courts offer delicious curries, roti, Chinese staples, macaroni pie and lentil peas, potato or green-fig salad, Creole-style fish, chicken and the ubiquitous pelau alongside burgers, grilled meats and sandwiches.
Corn soup Fortifying and delicious, great after a night out.
Doubles Delectable chickpea delights, best at breakfast time or post-party.
Gyros Wraps of meat, fish or falafel are ubiquitous to the street-food scene.
Pholouri Addictive doughballs with a spicy dipping sauce.
Pies Filled with potato, beef or fish, and dressed with Trini chutney.
In Tobago, Crown Point has a decent spread of restaurants, from Italian pizza joints to seafood, Creole cooking, curry and roti. Away from the southwest, most restaurants are small-scale affairs serving strictly seafood and Creole cuisine, though hotels do hold some more upmarket places to eat. If you’re here in the low season (mid-April to mid-Dec), bear in mind that many kitchens close at around 9pm, or even open up for bookings only, especially for dinner.
Breakfast is traditionally a hearty meal, designed to stand you in good stead for a hard day’s work. Staples include spicy fried fish, smoked herring cooked up with onions and peppers (and sometimes egg), or buljol, a delectable blend of flaked saltfish with raw onions, tomatoes and sweet peppers, usually eaten with avocado and a couple of light, airy rolls called hops, or with coconut bake, a flat round bread made with grated coconut. It’s ideally washed down with a steaming mug of sweet chocolate tea: fresh cocoa spiced up with nutmeg, cinnamon and bay leaf. The most popular breakfast on the go, however, is doubles (see below): vendors do a brisk trade from as early as 5am.
T&T offers the best street food in the Caribbean, with everything from Indian specialities to gyro wraps, fried chicken and, of course, roti; and as vendors are subject to stringent hygiene checks, eating on the hop doesn’t constitute a health risk.
The most popular Indian snack is doubles, two pieces of soft, fried bara bread sandwiching a runny channa (chickpea) curry that’s dressed with cucumber, pepper sauce and kucheela (green mango chutney), and usually sold in the mornings from streetside stalls noticeable for their long queues. Aloo pies (flattened fried doughballs filled with spiced potato and dressed with channa) are another popular snack, as are cheese, beef or fish versions. A little less substantial are the addictive pholouri, fried split-pea-flour doughballs served with tart and tasty tamarind curry sauce; sahina, a ground channa and dasheen leaf fritter; and baiganee, aubergine fried in a seasoned split-pea batter. Port of Spain’s Savannah and most junctions along the Eastern Main Road are flanked by vendors selling small local oysters, served in a cup with a peppery, vinegary tomato sauce. Creole street delicacies include corn soup, a thick and satisfying split-pea broth with vegetables, chunks of sweetcorn and mini dumplings. Accra is a peppery saltfish fritter, while bake and shark (see below) is available far beyond its traditional home, Maracas Beach.
One of T&T’s most popular street foods has long been bake and shark, slices of seasoned shark meat, served hot in a floaty fried bake, slathered in delicious chadon beni, tamarind and garlic sauces, and topped with fresh salad. The bake and shark capital of Trinidad is Maracas Beach, where scores of vendors compete with stalwart operator Richard’s to draw in the queues. Delicious as shark and bake may be, however, you might want to think twice before tucking in. Sharks are increasingly rare in Caribbean waters, as they are globally. Trinidad and Tobago hold the dubious honour of being the sixth-largest exporter of shark fins in the world, while overfishing and the practice of landing juvenile sharks has pretty much decimated the shark population in local waters. Sharks play a vital role in the already fragile ecosystems of the Caribbean Sea, and the decrease in their numbers is having dire consequences for the region’s reefs and its fish populations. For this reason, T&T’s environmentalists advocate asking for more sustainable fish with your bake: flying fish, mahi-mahi, and carite are all sound choices.
As well as chicken wings and burgers, bar snacks – known as cutters – served up in the nation’s watering-holes – include geera pork, laced with hot pepper and cumin: a unique local find. You might also find Lebanese-style kibbies, spiced meat of lentils wrapped in crushed bulgur wheat and fried.
Blue food/provisions Tubers such as yam, dasheen, sweet potato, tannia and cassava, usually boiled and served as a carb side to a meal.
Bodi Local variety of string beans.
Buljol Breakfast dish of saltfish, onion and sweet peppers.
Buss-up-shut Variety of roti skin, bashed up to look like a ripped shirt, and used to scoop up curry.
Calalloo Soupy side dish made with dasheen leaves, okra, pumpkin and coconut milk.
Choka Stewed tomatoes or aubergine, served with bready sada roti skins for breakfast.
Chow Unripe mango, pommecythere or other fruit, sliced and mixed with garlic, hot pepper and salt.
Doubles Streetside snack of fried breads with a dollop of curried chickpeas.
Melongene aubergine; also called baigan.
Pelau one-pot rice and chicken dish.
Pies Fried dough parcels filled with potato (aloo) beef and the like, split open and dressed with chutney.
Roti Wheat-based bread (“skins”), wrapped around curried seafood, meat and veg.
Though international fast-food chains – particularly Subway, Pizza Hut, Burger King and McDonald’s – are part of the scenery, local outlets still manage to draw the crowds: chicken chains Japs and Royal Castle are the Trinbagonian KFC equivalent, using a tasty blend of spices and herbs in the batter and serving flying-fish sandwiches and veggie burgers. Joe’s Pizza (Trinidad only) is another good option, and also delivers.
In T&T culinary terms, Creole refers to African-style cooking which has picked up many other influences along the way. Often served with coleslaw and a slice of zaboca (avocado), pelau is a classically Creole chicken dish, utilizing the “browning down” tradition of caramelizing meat in burnt brown sugar. Rice, pigeon peas, pumpkin and seasoning are then added and cooked down in coconut milk to delicious effect.
Browning is also used to make traditional Sunday lunch of baked chicken, usually served with rice, stewed peas (aka pulses such as pigeon peas, lentils or kidney beans), with cheesy macaroni, potato pie or mayo-heavy pasta and green fig (green banana) salad. Another Creole staple is callaloo: chopped dasheen leaves cooked with okra, pumpkin, coconut milk and occasionally crab meat: a tasty, pleasantly slimy mixture that’s sometimes puréed as a soup. It’s often served with coocoo, a kind of cornmeal polenta flavoured with okra. Two dishes not for the squeamish are the highly spiced local black pudding, and souse, pigs’ or chickens’ feet marinated in lime juice and peppers, and served cold. A classic accompaniment to main meals is oil down: vegetables (particularly breadfruit or cassava) stewed in coconut milk and flavoured with pig tail.
Despite the protests of environmentalists citing the decimation of local species, “wild meat” such as iguana, agouti, lappe, manicou, tattoo (armadillo) and quenk are considered a delicacy, and end up in the pot where available. A two-year hunting ban (2013–2015) saw numbers begin to stabilize, but wild meat was still caught and sold illicitly throughout the banned period, as it continues to be outside of the official oct–Feb hunting season. Steer well clear.
Creole soups include corn soup; san coche, a lentil soup cooked with pig tail; and cow-heel soup, thick with split peas and slowly cooked meat. Fish broth is a thin and delicious fortifying soup padded out with boiled green bananas and dumplings, while pacro water is similar but substitutes pacro (a mollusc known as chip-chip in Trinidad) for fish, and is touted as a strong aphrodisiac. Soups made from pumpkin, callaloo or pulses (red peas, black-eyed peas etc), often flavoured with pig tail, are also classic Creole creations.
Seafood is extremely popular and unfailingly good: from thick steaks of dense and delicious kingfish, grouper, tuna, cavalli, carite, barracuda and mahi-mahi/dolphin (the fish also known as and mahi-mahi/dolphin (the fish also known as “dorado”, not the mammal), to smaller fillets of “red fish”: moonshine, snapper, parrotfish, flying fish and tilapia. (Note that of these, mahi-mahi, flying fish, carite and tilapia are the most sustainable choices.) Creole-style fish is usually fried or stewed in a coconut sauce or a peppery tomato-based marinade of onion, sweet and hot peppers and garlic, while curry crab and dumpling (small whole crabs cooked in a coconut curry sauce and served with boiled dumplings) is a marvellous Tobago speciality; you’ll occasionally see curry conch, too. Local lobster is usually doused in a lemon, garlic or herb butter, or sometimes curried.
Caribbean Kitchen, Castara, Tobago.
The Fish Pot, Pleasant Prospect, Tobago.
Kariwak Village, Crown Point, Tobago.
Sails, Chaguaramas, Trinidad.
Veni Mange, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Though the obvious staple of Indo-Trinidadian cooking is curry, the T&T version is somewhat different to that served in India, made with a blend of curry powder that’s unique to the islands alongside fresh hot peppers. One of the most popular curry dishes is duck, which forms the centrepiece of the ever-popular Trini tradition of a “curry duck lime”. Another mainstay is the vast array of chutneys, ranging from super-sweet to tart or peppery. Sweetly curried mango or pomme cythere on the seed, peppery anchar and kucheela, a hot mango pickle, are universally plopped into rotis, doubles and aloo pies.
The unofficial national dish, roti is a stretchy flat bread (“skin”) used to wrap curried meat, vegetables or shrimp (and sometimes fish), a style of preparation that originated in Trinidad but is now popular across the Caribbean. There are several variations of roti skins including: basic dhalpuri (with seasoned split peas layered into the dough); sada (more like a flatbread, it’s cooked on a hot griddle, usually in the early morning, and served with sauteed fresh tomato or aubergine “choka”); and buss-up-shut, a thin, tasty shredded skin that resembles a torn cloth shirt and is used to spoon up mouthfuls of curry sold in “snackboxes”. Paratha or dosti is a plain roti skin.
Roti fillings range from curried chicken and beef to conch, goat and shrimp. Most vendors include meat on the bone – if you don’t fancy sucking out the marrow as the locals do, ask for “boneless”. Common vegetarian fillings (also used to complement the meats) are channa (curried chickpeas) and potato, sweet pumpkin, bodi (green beans) and bhaji (local spinach). In a restaurant, you may be offered a bowl of peppery lentil dhal as an accompaniment.
Good roti shops abound in the capital, but most locals agree that the best roti is to be found in the Indian heartlands of central or south Trinidad.
Local fruit and vegetables are plentiful and cheap, particularly if you buy from large markets. Some unusual local fruits include the super-sweet and extremely popular sapodilla, grey-brown and globular with gritty, sweet pulp, while cherry-sized chenets (also called guinep) have smooth green skin and a large seed with sweet, slightly acidic flesh. The knobbly green-and-brown skin of the soursop surrounds a delectable milky white pulp, often made into ice cream; its smaller cousin the sweetsop is less common. Look out also for the scrumptious caimet, a round, deep-purple fruit with seeds that form a star shape when the fruit is cut in half. The round pomme cythere (or “pomsitae”; golden apple/June plum in other islands) is sweet and yellow when ripe, but is often eaten green with salt and hot pepper as “chow” – as is the star-shaped carambola (five finger), pineapple and unripe mango.
Grown to huge proportions in T&T, pawpaw (papaya) is best eaten with a squeeze of fresh lime, while bananas (often called figs – look out for the tasty, tiny finger variety or young green bananas boiled and eaten as a savoury), water-melon and pineapples are all very common. Citrus is ever popular; you’ll see lemons, limes and exceptionally sweet oranges and grapefruit, while portugals are easy-peel, thick-skinned mandarins.
Many varieties of mango grow profusely in rural areas, perfuming whole communities with the distinctive aroma of rotting fruit from April till August. The most popular (and expensive) type is the rosy, medium-sized Julie, while the long stringy mango is best avoided unless you have dental floss handy.
The most frequent vegetables seen on the Creole dinner plate are boiled root vegetables (known as blue food or ground provisions) such as yam as well as slightly denser tannia; chewy, purple-tinted dasheen; and softer, white-coloured eddoe and cassava; sweet potatoes; and boiled ripe plantain, the latter a larger, denser member of the banana family. Deliciously sweet when ripe, it’s also fried and made into crisps. Dasheen leaves are cooked up with okra to make callaloo. You’ll also see aubergine (locally called melongene or baigan), christophenes – pear-shaped and light green with a bland, watery taste similar to marrow – green bodi string beans and breadfruit, which is green and thick-skinned with clothy white flesh that can be baked, boiled or fried.
Thanks to the Indian influence, pulses (referred to as peas) are widely used: look out for of split-pea dhal; green lentils, split peas or pigeon peas cooked with pumpkin and coconut; and chickpeas (channa) mixed with potato and curried.
Though there are plenty of fantastic local puddings, from nutmeg-laced cassava pone to the classic black cake – a ridiculously rich, rum-soaked Christmas speciality – most restaurant dessert menus concentrate on serving international staples. Home-made ice cream is ubiquitous and delicious, however, with flavours such as cherry-sorrel or barbadine sold everywhere from street stalls to supermarkets.
As for sweets, look out for bene balls, tooth-cracking globes of sesame seeds and sugar, and coconut cake, a slab of shredded coconut boiled in sugar syrup and pink food colouring. Tamarind balls take a little getting used to, combining the tart taste of tamarind with sugar and salt, as do salt prunes (seasoned, sweet-and-sour prunes rolled in a dusty red colouring, often dropped into white rum) and red mango, which is green mango, well seasoned with spices and sugar and doused in bright red colouring. Other candies include toolum, a sticky ball of grated coconut, molasses and ginger, pawpaw balls (shredded green papaya boiled in sweet syrup and rolled in sugar) and gingery fudge, while there are hundreds of often sickly sugared and fried Indian sweets; kurma (sweet fried doughballs) are probably the most popular.
Fine local chocolate made in T&T from locally grown cocoa beans has seen a resurgence in recent years, and is utterly delicious. As well as individual chocolates from the likes of Cocobel or Gina’s Truffles, head to Adam’s or the Cocoa Pod in Port of Spain, or Tobago Chocolate Delights, to pick up chocolate produced by members of the Alliance of Rural Communities – from Brasso Seco’s coffee-infused bars to Grande Riviere’s delectable cinnamon - and organic bars, cocoa powder and gluten-free brownie and pancake mixes from Sun Eaters Organics (facebook.com/suneatersorganics).
Given T&T’s capacity for consumption of beer, it’s hardly surprising the national brews go down smoothly. The market leaders are Carib, a light, golden lager, and Stag, a little more robust and marketed as “a man’s beer”. Both taste best drunk very cold straight from the bottle (women are usually offered a straw), and both are available on draught. Carib Pilsner Light is a bearable if rather insipid lower-alcohol alternative. Guinness is brewed in Trinidad but, though bitter and refreshing, it bears little similarity to versions elsewhere. The sweeter Royal Extra or Mackeson stouts are excellent local alternatives. The ubiquitous Heineken and other international lagers are also widely available.
VEGETARIAN, VEGAN AND GLUTEN-FREE T&T
Trinbagonians are big meat-eaters, but vegetarians won’t find it hard to get a good meal on either island. Veg rotis are ubiquitous, there are plenty of meat-free street food options, and an extra serving of stewed pulses (“peas”) can always be added to a Creole meal for a protein fix. Tobago is thin on places catering solely to vegetarians, though Kariwak Village and Shore Things are good places to start, but there are richer pickings in Port of Spain: several great vegetarian restaurants – Mother Nature, Hardline Vegetarian and New Earth Organic – plus lots of vegan and dairy- or gluten-free options at Livet Gourmet and Zabouca Breads.
Produced in Laventille by the House of Angostura, T&T’s dark (or “red”) and white rum are downed with equal enthusiasm, the white tending to be less abrasively strong than the overproof brands of other islands; regular rums are 43 percent alcohol. The most popular brands are the clear White Oak and its dark counterparts Black Label and Royal Oak, all perfectly drinkable but best when mixed into a cocktail or with a chaser. Trinbagonian rum punch is delicious, using blended fruits, syrup, a sprinkle of ground nutmeg and, of course, a splash of the delectable Angostura bitters, also a worthy addition to any mixed drink. At 75 percent alcohol, the eye-watering Forres Park puncheon rum is perhaps best avoided, though it does add a kick to a rum cocktail.
Of the more high-end aged rums, Angostura Single Barrel matures in oak casks for five years and is a decent sipping or mixing rum; the bourbon casks used for Single Barrel Premium produce an agreeably buttery rum, and there’s a very smooth seven-year-old in the range, too. Moving up a notch, Angostura 1919 is a premium 8-year aged rum in a distinctive square bottle; its 12-year-old counterpart, Angostura 1824, is heavy with molasses and is great drunk neat or over ice, as is the ultra-premium 15-year-old Angostura 1787. Look out, also, for the fantastic El Dorado aged rums, produced in Guyana but widely available in T&T. If you’re in T&T around Christmas, you might be offered poncha creme, an eggnog boosted with plenty of rum.
Most bars also offer the usual range of fruity cocktails, from piña coladas to frozen margaritas.
Sweet and strong home-made wines – cashew, banana, aloes, hibiscus and so on – are excellent if you can get your hands on them; imported wine is widely available by bottle and, less expensively, by box: larger supermarkets carry standard selections of Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, as well as Cabernet, Merlot and the like, and a range of proseccos. Expect to pay a little more than you would at home, particularly if you order by the glass in a restaurant.
Local soft drinks include the energy-boosting Ginseng-Up; delicious Carib Shandy, in sorrel and ginger varieties; LLB, a mix of lime, lemon and bitters that makes a good mixer for spirits; and Bentley, a refreshing bitter-lemon soda. The best thing for the heat, however, is mineral-packed fresh coconut water, sold in water or jelly varieties. Vendors chop off the outer husk to expose a drinking hole (use a straw as the juice stains clothing), and then hack the nut in two so you can scoop out the delicious jelly. You can also buy bottles of fresh coconut water in supermarkets.
Made from boiled tree bark, cloves and aniseed, reddish-brown (sometimes yellow) mauby is a wonderfully bitter still drink. Other unusual options include tart, deep cerise sorrel, enjoyed at Christmas with a dash of rum, and sea moss, a white and glutinous preparation made from sea moss and milk, which is widely believed to enhance sexual performance; another stamina-inducing potions is the “bomb”, a blended concoction of Guinness, nutmeg and condensed milk or a carton of Supligen energy drink. Cinnamon- and nutmeg-infused carrot juice and peanut punch, blended with condensed milk, are a meal in themselves, sold from punch stalls across the islands.