“Photowalking is the act of walking with a camera for the main purpose of taking pictures of things that the photographer may find interesting.”

This particular photo walk was part of Scott Kelby’s Third World Wide Photo Walk. A mouthful, I know. But it’s a great concept – on the same day (in this case Saturday 24th July), all around the world, people with cameras gather together to walk and take photos together.

Lilandra heard about it, tweeted. Marc Seyon got interested and ended up creating a walk for Trinidad (one of two that occurred on the day). And since I happened to be able to be in Trinidad on the very day, passing through, I joined up. Yes, I did. I signed up for an activity where I had to meet people IRL.

And I went!

You can visit the Flickr group for the World Wide Walk to see photos people took from all around the globe on July 24th. To be honest, it’s better than trying to navigate the main website to see the photos! The Walk is also a competition – each photo walker (33497!) submits one photo the website, and the walk leader chooses the best photo. Then the overall organisers choose the best photos from all 1111 walks that took place this year. The previous best photos are pretty cool.

Our walk started opposite the BP Building (formerly the historic Savannah hotel) and went along the Savannah up to Whitehall then back down to Tragarete Road through St Clair, returning to Victoria Avenue to meetup at TGI Friday’s. I admit I was exhausted having arrived in Trinidad 11 p.m. the night before after a loooong day of travel and delays. Plus we were all heading out to Guyana the next day for a family vacation…so after we were done with the Magnificent Seven, our splinter group headed down Maraval Road across Marli Street back to Victoria Avenue, and early consumption of appetizers and dessert

I had planned to walk with both my lenses to allow me to zoom into some of the building features, or get some nice wide shots of the Savannah or one of the Magnificent Seven. I packed up my stuff in Guyana since 30 June when I started traveling, and I carefully packed my polarising filter, lens hood etc for my 18-135mm lens. Got to Trinidad realised, I never packed the lens… Ah well, another outing with my faster Sigma 50mm f2.8, which is also a macro lens allowing me to take macro shots on the walk I’ve been using this prime for so long now that it feels odd when I use a camera with a different focal length!

I loved the photo walk primarily because I rarely walk through Trinidad, my homeland, taking photos. It’s as bad as living in Guyana and not having photos of Georgetown until I have a visitor! I got decent photos of the newly snazzy Queen’s Royal College (with which my clothes were apparently coordinated), the dilapidated Mille Fleurs and Boissiere House, the pristine Archbishop’s Palace and the gorgeous fretwork and louvres of the gingerbread houses on Marli Street.

In the end, I had to select one photo for submission – very difficult. Especially since I only put my photos on the computer the day of the submission deadline and I had almost 200 photos. Sigh. I ended up posting the one with the Anglican Church on Marli Street – something about the glass and metal and brick appealed to me. But I can never be sure if it’s my “best” shot!

Trinigourmet, Lilandra and I have started discussing a foodie photo walk in Trinidad – with ideas ranging from Debe (the market and indian delicacy vendors) to Wasamaki Permaculture.

Any takers? Suggestions welcome!

World Wide Photo Walk Trinidad Flickr Group

My Photo Walk Flickr set.

You don’t see Ting down here in the South (Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana). At least not to my knowledge. Can’t recall ever seeing it in Barbados either. So, some time passed before I was actually introduced to this icon of Jamaican non-alcoholic drinks – Ting, the carbonated beverage made from “Jamaican grapefruit!”.

ting "from Caribbean grapefruit"

And that’s exactly what it is – carbonated grapefruit juice. Tangy, not too sweet and fizzy you can see how it could catch on. It tastes good, and like it should be good for you. All that citrusy sizzle.

Of course, this bottle of Ting was bought in St Kitts, so it actually says “from Caribbean grapefruit”. In addition to Jamaica, it is now bottled in the OECS (Carib Brewery in St Kitts) as well, and you can find the drink in more Caribbean countries (still not down here). Notwithstanding the new “Caribbean” tag, I gather Jamaicans will still call it a Jamaican drink – my Jamaican colleagues in St Kitts were taken aback not to see the “Jamaican grapefruit” on the label. At least it’s made from Caribbean grapefruit!

Now I feel like I should go track down some other iconic soft drinks…like Solo Apple J “the champagne of soft drinks!”. Although I doubt very much that was made from Trini apples…

What do you think of as “national” non-alcoholic bottled drinks in your part of the Caribbean?

We didn’t really stop anywhere, despite the urgings of our driver, because we were short on time and needed to catch the ferry back to St Kitts for an evening appointment. But we did pause briefly at the Golden Rock Inn, one of the former plantations, restored beautifully and run as a luxurious hotel.

The driver parked under this tree, and I stood up taking photos of the cloud and sky, the lovely branches, those interesting tufts of…cotton…silk cotton…I looked at my watch – 12, on the dot.

Me: “uhm, driver? what kind of tree is this?”
Driver: “Silk cotton, ma’am.”
Me, a little louder: “You parked us under a silk cotton tree at NOON?”

By this time, the rest of my group was back in the vehicle and looking out at me – what’s the problem?

Sigh.

Now, I am not really superstitious, but still, I thought everyone knew to stay away from silk cotton trees, not just at midnight, but noon too, or jumbie will follow you. I explained this to the Jamaicans and Trinis in the bus and not a one seemed to know about this. What have people been learning??

Jumbies are supposed to live in these trees, which is why people shy away from cutting them down for fear of releasing evil spirits or suffering some supernatural revenge. I can distinctly remember my Ma, my mpaternal grandmother telling us, late at night on her porch, about how a soucouyant becomes a soucouyant by going round a silk cotton tree…and probably some other steps…I am fuzzy on the details.

What superstitions do you know about the silk cotton tree?

But this bun was different. It was yellowish yes, but smaller and didn’t have the characteristic smooth roundness of a yeast-leavened dough. I had no expectations of it other than I was a little peckish and wanted something to go with my cup of tea. And with my first bite, I was transported. It tasted like biscuit cake! Biscuit cake in GUYANA! It looked nothing like the round, pale inch-thick disks, big as your hand and lightly covered with white specks of granulated sugar, which I know to be biscuit cake. But the flavour was there. I couldn’t believe my sister had never told me I could get this in Guyana.

Now, I love biscuit cake. It was always my requested item when we did a bakery stop during my childhood, and because it was usually the cheapest thing in the bakery, I could get 2, or biscuit cake plus half a currants roll. I have tried looking for a recipe online, but it doesn’t seem to be one of the things anyone has posted. If anyone has a recipe, let me know (and Mom, if it turns out you have a recipe I will forgive you if it’s in my inbox before you comment ). [I did a little googling and came across this recipe for Trini Milk Cake - is this it?]

Biscuit cake is so named, possibly because it is shaped like a big biscuit (American terminology=cookie). While it may appear firm and hard on the outside, it should have a softness to the bite with a milky mild sweetness, and appears almost unleavened? Of course those dryness-czars have attacked this delicacy as well and many bakeries had versions that were dry and tough and unappealing unless dunked in tea. I think my parents indulged the biscuit cake requests, not simply because of the price (30 years ago they might have been 50 cents and then later $1 – any idea how much it is now?) but also the fact that it wasn’t in fact sugar-laden. While most bakeries in Trinidad would have had this item, I cannot remember the last time I saw it. Of course it’s better to ask someone who lives in Trinidad…or in the case of Trinfood someone who lives in London but knows her stuff – she advised that Chee Mooke’s sells them and Bread Basket in St Ann’s has a good one. I remember my best was in a bakery we used to stop by on our way up to Santa Cruz – was it St Mary’s? – it had the best pastries.

Since I had that flashback I have been going further down memory lane, remembering all the associations with bakeries and buying pastries such as biscuit cake. [Photos in this later post]Of course, there were the times when during the week, on our way home from school we’d stop at the bakery to pick up hot hops (how many bakeries have flashing lights “Hot Hops Available Now”?) – one quart for home, half quart for the family of six to devour on the way home. And if we were due for a treat, Mom would bring back some pastries to the car for us.

But the best bakery times took place, not at the bakery, but with the bread vans. I’ve seen bread vans in Barbados – as students, we were introduced to Bajan specialties from a van that stopped at our student apartment. I cannot recall what they were called though. A bread van is a small minibus vehicle,** where instead of seats, the main cavity of the vehicle was stacked with shelves and trays carrying fresh bakery goodies. The vans belong or work for particular bakeries and they would drive through our village every afternoon selling their wares, getting customers who would otherwise not have transport to get into the town or main road to get to the bakery. Unlike ice cream vans, which play stretched out taped music through loudspeakers, or the fish vans which call out their goods on mikes (“Caaaaareeet! Fresh Caaaaaareeet! Fry Dry! CroCro! Red Fish Caaaaaareeeeeeet!”), bread vans generally announce themselves with quick tooting of the horn every few metres. What more do you need when you’re selling hot and fresh baked goods?

The best time to buy from the bread van was on the weekend. Everyone was home and hearing the horn from the round the corner was like a signal to put on the kettle. Pastries in the afternoon from the bread van meant we would stop whatever we were doing, and all sit down around the table and have tea! I wasn’t a fan of tea itself then, but the milk and sugar that went into it But the memory of those weekend afternoons, with the fat round brown teapot (sadly broken for some years now) filled to the brim with hot tea, and our choice of delicacies from the van laid out on the table, are part of the golden years.

As a scaredy-cat child it was torture, however, to be given the assignment to stop the bread van, although the promise of the purchases made that chore more successful than waiting for the vegetable or fish van! I lived in fear of embarrassment or doing the wrong thing and the thought that I might not wave the right way, and the van driver would sense my fear, know I was somehow an inadequate village child and sneer; rushing past me on the little village road, leaving me with my arm awkwardly waving at nothing, with all the neighbours seeing my failure (yeah, I know… had/have issues…). However, for the bread van I would brave it. I could even muster up the courage to make the purchases myself. After all I knew full well the contents of the bread van and could make an informed selection -

Jam tarts, flaky layered pastry, twisted into a big triangle, with bright red jam of unknown (to me) origins, warm so that the jam oozed out when you bit into it, with the top of the pastry glistening with its light layer of crystallized sugar. The pastry would be so good, you’d eat the dry ends even if they didn’t have a speck of jam! Jam tarts were a favourite of sister-the-elder and my father. I liked them well enough, but I didn’t usually request them.

Currants roll - this is a Trini classic – similar flaky pastry as the jam tart, but rolled out and sprinkled with currants and sugar and rolled up, baked and sliced diagonally creating that recognisable shape with layers of pastry and currants rolled around inside. I don’t have photos and I have never made it myself, but to get an idea, look at these photos from my Flickr friend Reya. Currants rolls are I think my father’s favourite. Wherever we go someone would say “get a currants roll for your father!”. Of course he wouldn’t turn down a good jam tart either. And since he doesn’t overindulge, he’d have half of each, leaving his half of a currants roll to be snatched up by his children at the first opportunity. Probably why he, the ever-thrifty, would buy a couple extra so we’d leave his alone.

I remember in the late 80s/90s when there were import restrictions and we couldn’t get currants in T&T. So people made currants roll with raisins, bad enough since they resemble raisins but have a tang and moistness that do not match the currants! Worse yet was when they used those bright coloured pieces of what used to be part of a fruit, which the TriniGourmet once aptly named the “rubiks cube bits” Currants roll should have currants. We even had a currants roll lady in the village (have I mentioned the Dahi Lady and the Channa Lady?) who would make currants roll for every event in the mosque and for Eid. Of course I knew her name, but I think she’d be pleased we remember her for the pastry only she made in the village.

Madeleines are not the cakes you’re probably thinking of. The madeleine found in Trini bakeries is a small light cupcake, completely covered in a red jamlike substance (see jam tart above) and then rolled in grated coconut. Absolutely lovely. Very sweet outside, light and fluffy inside and the little added texture of the coconut. I would look out for that and hated the vans that didn’t bring it and had bellyful cake instead (I do not understand the allure of this).

Rock Cake/Bun – This is like a drop bun, with coconut flavour, and the “rock” really refers to the rough hard exterior – the inside should still be soft. It’s scone like, not rolled out smooth, but dropped onto the baking sheet, so it looks like a rock I suppose. I used to eat all around the outsides before the middle – the hard outsides were my favourite part. And rock cake shouldn’t have things in it as far as I am concerned, but people will always find a way to add their raisins and bright coloured things…

Of course bread vans would also have sweetbread and regular cakes. Maybe some savoury stuff. I don’t really remember. Trinifood had posted about some of these traditional sweets a few years ago. Since I am not often in the homeland to stop a bread van or take a poll of the bakeries, I’d love to hear from you about these faves of mine. Recipes welcome. Recommendations as to good traditional bakeries appreciated!

And now that I am pausing my reminiscing and that you (hopefully) have read all the way down here without a single photo to break the prose, let’s go have some tea. And if you’re not in a hotel, look out for the bread van for me!

UPDATE (24 March 2010): added links to TriniGourmet’s recipes for the Trini yellow bun and Coconut Drop where mentioned above.

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*I know…this isn’t really an Ode. There’s no lyric poetry here…maybe some other time!

**The minibuses that ARE minibuses are called bread van maxis if they’re this small size. Maxi-taxi being the Trini (and Turkish) minibus

From my brief visit in October, my mind is still filled with images of broken-down buildings on many streets in Port au Prince – and that was before the earthquake. But there was much positive images from that trip as well – the hospitality of the people, the views from the Hotel Montana (which was hit hard by the quake), the lovely Caribbean food, the art and music that people surround themselves with. As a lawyer, it was also most telling that we were there the day they voted out the Prime Minister, yet life (outside Government offices) went on as normal, without the violence and chaos that in previous times might have met any of the frequent hiccoughs in the stability of the administration.

Hard enough for Haiti to be hit like this…worse that it hit the capital so hard. There is much being said, and much more will continue to be said about the adequacy of the immediate international response to actually get aid on the ground. The fact that even now, ten days later essential aid is not getting to people, rescue efforts amid the rubble seem to never have started in some areas, and still people are dying. I am not an expert on disaster responses, but I do feel that alot of that has to be because the quake hit Port au Prince leaving the government, in terms of persons and manpower, physical buildings and mental state, in shambles. Even the UN mission office was devastated and key relief agency personnel were lost. Lessons to learn for those of us who live in even smaller islands where we centralise our entire official administration in one single crammed capital. Not to name names – I try not to do that in this blog, but seriously, who would take the reins if Port of Spain were to be hit? The Mayor of San Fernando???).

Most of our Caribbean governments have received the disfavour of regional commenters (and of course bloggers) for slow or insufficient responses, whether it be for holding to a wait-and-see attitude or pledging relatively small sums to the aid effort. Again, I am not an expert. But I do know that none of us is equipped to deal with the disaster of the kind Haiti is experiencing. Not individually. Another lesson to learn for our own benefit. The response had to be international to secure the best of the best for Haiti, ever the poor outside child. If the response failed, we, the whole world failed. Not just the Caribbean. That’s not to let our people off the hook though. We might be small and only a few of us have standing militaries and heavy rescue and transportation equipment, and even if we were not the best placed for the immediate rescue and relief efforts, that is just the first stage. Haiti is our Caribbean sister. The responsibility to be there for Haiti and Haitians will not end for us. It does not end when the city is cleaned up and the emergency volunteers have left. Not even when things appear to be functioning with normal administration systems. The level of destruction Haiti has experienced cannot be reversed overnight. Or even in a few years. They had little foundation to begin with.

So, Caribbean leaders, I am not going to calculate what you have pledged in this the first ten days since the earthquake. Your accounting should continue for years and years into the future. We cannot leave Haiti to be rebuilt by the superpowers. Our first independent sister should not be subjected to newer forms of colonialism, well-meaning as they may be, not if all of us who celebrate the history beginning with Toussaint L’Ouverture really believe what we’re talking about when we take the victory of the black people in Haiti as part of our Caribbean history.

Maybe this is why I took this long to post…too much to say that I usually try to stay away from on this blog. I cannot end without noting that there have been responses from the Caribbean. It may not be reported, it may not be considered great by the international news media, or sadly even by the regional media, but there is a system in the Caribbean to respond to disasters and it was triggered. If you visit the website of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) you will see updates on the actions taken. Operations started with the Jamaica Defence Force including relief supplies and medical personnel. CDEMA is also coordinating and reporting on its member countries’ relief efforts. The Caribbean Community is also compiling volunteer information via a questionnaire on its website, so fill out the form if you have some special skill or time to give to relief efforts.

“Nationals of the Caribbean Community including French, French Creole Patois speakers, who are willing to make available their expertise and services to the Community’s response to this tragedy, are invited to submit contact details and other information using the questionnaire provided”

Although the focus right now is on financial contributions and medical assistance, it appears the information will be compiled for further relief efforts. I reiterate that I make no comment on the adequacy or efficiency of this action, but know that it is there.

And that’s just official responses, as in governments. The outpourings of private citizens and organisations, NGOs and commercial entities are encouraging. And I hope they persist. Check in with Global Voices Online special coverage on Haiti to get citizen-media updates, including from bloggers in Haiti right now.

As to where else you can make contributions, the listing on CNN is a good start as it gives you information on various organisations from which you can make your choice.

If you want to offer something more tangible than money, Jai and Bee of Jugalbandi have provided some information on the ShelterBox, a system designed to shelter 10 people, something really needed in Haiti right now.

So, go help. But remember the help shouldn’t disappear when the global attention moves on to something else.

Courtesy this job, I have been to Grenada quite a few times in the last few years. It’s generally just to Grand Anse, and usually not enough to time to do more than the hotel (cue sigh about the supposed glamour of a job-with-travel). Due to the number of visits, however, I do have a few ideas. Grenada is probably my next favourite island after T&T. Or it alternates with Dominica (who would not love a country that is tiny yet still 2/3 uninhabitable because of gorgeous rain forested mountain?). And occasionally sentimentality about the 2.5 years (over a 12 year period) lived in Barbados.

But no. Back to the point. I decided the last time that Grenada was my favourite other Caribbean island. Decisions are helpful to know how you feel. Try it. It’s life-changing.

Grenada is a small island with rainforest and natural features like waterfalls and volcanic crater lakes, the expected gorgeous Caribbean beach and coastal views, narrow winding and steep little roads right in town and through the rainforest, and gorgeous colour everywhere. It is the Spice Isle, being the source of great things like the nutmeg pictured above, which I picked up from nder a tree just growing on the side of a road…incredible. Because of this, it is also the source of the incredibly delicious treat called nutmeg ice cream. Which, when done well, is like the richest, creamiest eggnog-y ice cream. Oh so good. On my first trip to Grenada, my aunt packed me up with 2 large  containers of this island specialty to take to Trinidad (just before the days of liquid restrictions on hand luggage), which I dutifully dropped off with her sister (my mother) and continued my travels. Upon my return a mere week later, there was NONE left. Nary a drop. It was that good.

While Grenada may seem like a typical Caribbean island there are a few features that are worth noting. One of the iconic views of Grenada is of the Carenage. The Carenage is the inner harbour in downtown St. George’s surrounded by hills and colourful houses and buildings picturesquely crammed onto those hills. It reminds me somewhat of the harbour towns in the Highlands and the Hebridean Islands. Obviously much warmer The Carenage is a bustling transportation and shopping hub, with markets and duty free shopping, and is always busy. And yes, the blues are that blue. I did no colour-tweaking at all on the most recent photos (new Sigma 50mm f2.8 lens has been great!).

Then there’s Grand Anse – there on the right. Home of many hotels and shopping around this gorgeous bay, it’s where I usually stay. Convenient because of the malls, supermarket and restaurants (and dentists, which I needed the last time) with easy access to that lovely beach. The view on the right is from the Flamboyant Hotel, which is up the hill the bay, giving you spectacular views.

There is more than just the beach to Grenada, however. In the Grand Etang Rainforest Reserve you’ll see lush rainforest (naturally), waterfalls, crater lakes and more. Annandale Falls is a pretty waterfall in the midst of tropical foliage. There’s a little area you can swim in, and people do jump although that may not be advisable… The Falls are in the Grand Etang Rainforest but very accessible from the road – a short walk past vendors and over a sulphur-laden stream. There is another waterfall people visit, but I have not yet been.

Of course, you don’t have to leave your hotel to experience wildlife. In Grand Anse in particular, they come to you…crabs. Big and small. Red crabs dot the roadways, coming out of every little hole in the dirt by the drains and ditches. Better yet, big ones suddenly appear in the night in the hotel as you walk to your room!

If you’re not partial to crabs in their live form, then head up to the Gouyave Fish Friday Festival (pronounced Gwah-v). Every Friday, the people in this little coastal town come out in the narrow streets and set up tents, stoves, grills etc and serve up seafood and local delicacies every where you look. It’s a bit of a drive from Grand Anse (taxi can cost about EC$200-220 round-trip) but it’s worth it if you go hungry and ready to try out everything. You can have all kinds of seafood obviously – fried, steamed or grilled fish, served with breadfruit, or fried bakes or chips. Crab backs. Coconut fried shrimp. Fish cakes. Nutmeg Ice Cream. Fresh Juices. Lots of different vendors to try different hands. The photo on the right is snapper wrapped in foil with onions and peppers and seasoning and cooked on a grill. Served with fried bakes. You may not always find a place to sit, but stick around people will have to get up and move eventually.

More formal dining is available of course. You can visit my  Eating Out: Grenada set on Flickr for views of food at The Beach House, Coconut Beach, Flamboyant and Le Chatueau. I highly recommend the Beach House – it’s an open building right on the beach and their food is excellent.

One of the popular tourist sites in Grenada is the agro-tourism of the Belmont Estate, which is a 17th century plantation where you can see their cocoa processing, organic farm, lovely gardens and dine at their restaurant. I can’t speak to the restaurant, since when I visited it was Ramadan and while my colleagues enjoyed lunch, I sat in the gardens and tried out my new lens on the lovely flowers and greenery. But I did see the cocoa laid out to dry, and a fruit stand with the estate’s produce.

Leapers’ Hill or Le Morne De Sauteurs is located in the northern part of the island where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean, and was named so by the French settlers after the indigenous Carib Amerindians, were defeated by the French for possesion of the island. Rather than facing submission to the French, the last few remaining Caribs jumped off the high cliff that is now called Leapers’ Hill. There’s a monument on the hill on the cemetary, from where you can get some nice views of Kick-em Jenny (a still active volcano off the coast of Grenada). The Information Centre is closed on Sundays, so take note.

Lots of things are closed on Sundays actually… like the Grenada Chocolate Company. Home to that lovely Organic Dark Chocolate in the pretty packaging. Sigh. If you’re headed to Grenada, make sure to schedule a visit on one of the other 6 days of the week.

There are many more photos in my Grenada set on Flickr.

I hope you enjoyed this little visit to Grenada, one of T&T’s closest neighbours. I realise I have been failing on the travel elements of this blog, so why not catch up so that I start 2010 on a good note!

Barbecue means different things to different people though – is the method of cooking, the equipment, the meat itself, the sauce or a particular meal combination? What makes a bbq? Growing up in T&T, we would barbecue on Old Years (what better way to pass the time in the one night you were allowed to stay up late?) together with neighbours. Which meant chicken, of course, with the lovely thick and charred layer of yummy, spicy and sweet, ketchupy bbq sauce. One of our neighbours would always wrap a big whole fish of some kind in foil and throw that on the grill too, all seasoned up and piled with onions and tomatoes etc. I remember an uncle trying to get me to expand my horizons beyond chicken with a piece of beef sliced off a big slab he’d grilled to a nice brown outside. Although I was not partial to it at the time (BEEF? no sauce??), I can still remember the flavours of smoky beef (NOT smoked beef which is a different entity entirely), which my more mature palate now can appreciate.  And oh, that’s just the proteins. No bbq in Trinidad can really be complete without the potato salad. All the better to soak up extra sauce. And a fry rice on the side. One year, we (Mom) contributed a lovely creamy cheesy green fig pie.

As we got a little older, we moved onto kebabs – lamb, chicken, veggie…skewered and then tossed in a olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs (Mom always has mint and thyme etc around). For a few years we did the Old Years’ barbecue at an uncle’s house, where we prepped whatever we wanted while he manned the grill. Fresh pineapple grilled, with sweet caramelisation on the outside and juiciness on the inside, together with lamb is just lovely. Once, when Dad wasn’t home to lug out the bbq, Mom got out the old small coal pot and we did lamb kebabs. We probably still did potato salad, or macaroni pie for the sides though.

So, when I was briefly in Toronto some years ago as a student, and was told to come along to the barbecue for the Faculty’s student orientation bbq, I was a bit taken aback by what that turned out to be – hot dogs…with veggie burgers (for people like me) – they fired up a grill for HOT DOGS. Was that all the Canadians meant by bbq? Did this extend to all of North America? Of course, I realised that couldn’t be it. I’d seen ads with people throwing steaks on the bbq. But it did make me wonder, what really do people mean when they say bbq? The Wikipedia entry doesn’t really make matters any clearer, other than identifying different usages and meaning in various parts of the world -

“[Barbecue] is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, with the heat and hot gases of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of charcoal or a propane gas grill, and may include application of a marinade, spice rub, or basting sauce to the meat. The term as a noun can refer to the cooking apparatus itself, or to a party that includes such food. The term as an adjective can refer to foods cooked by this method. The term is also used as a verb for the act of cooking food in this manner.”

People can name things whatever they want If you read this blog you know, that is fine by me. Barbecue, at least the word, can be traced right back to the Caribbean, however (see Wikipedia) -

“Most etymologists believe that barbecue derives ultimately from the word barbacoa found in the language of the Taíno people of the Caribbean. The word translates as “sacred fire pit.”[2] The word describes a grill for cooking meat, consisting of a wooden platform resting on sticks.”

But let’s move away from things that I am unclear about to things I know. Which, as always, focus on my personal experiences, and people are welcome to contribute their own (different) knowledge! Barbecue for me is about cooking over fire, yes, but to be “Trini” barbecue, the sauce is as important. And I don’t mean that (hickory) smoked American style bbq sauce – I really don’t like that flavour so much so that I hate bbq-flavoured chips (if only they’d invent a shadow benny bbq-flavoured chip). The sauce is important, because while the meat is cooking, you have to keep basting with the sauce, so that by the time the meat is cooked through, it has developed this thick, crusty exterior built from charring and sauce, while the meat is kept moist; with every bite ensuring that you taste the flavours of the sauce. (Of course this can be achieved by that other Trini favourite, of drowning food in sauce but it’s not quite the same thing…)

The Trini bbq sauce is ketchup based, and while everyone puts their own spin on it, it is essentially meant to be a little on the sweet side, infused with our regular green seasonings and some heat. I like when there’s a touch of tamarind in it – to bring a tang and complexity of flavour that is balanced out by the sweetness and the must-have shadow beni/bandhania. I know some people who add some citrus to the mix. While if you’re in a rush, you can just mix the ketchup together with your other stuff, the best sauce is made from slow-cooking all the ingredients together (watch out for ketchup splatter, and add some extra liquid).

The most common barbecued meat is chicken…well, that’s just the most common meat in T&T isn’t it? And there are different schools of thought on achieving the best balance of cooked-but-not-dry meat and crusty exterior. Most people favour pre or par-cooking the chicken, particularly when cooking for a large group, or in a rush. Because getting a quarter of a chicken to cook properly all the way through, takes some time…it’s not like a flat, relatively thin lamb chop, or a steak which can take some rareness. So many people will steam the seasoned chicken till almost fully cooked (sometimes even with some sauce), or microwave it, and then start the basting and grilling process. This is fine for a crowd, when you only have a single relatively small bbq, but I like the flavour of the chicken when you’ve cooked it long and slow, basting all the time, and then charring. The photo on the left was from a couple months ago, when I visited home, and since it was just 4 of us, Lilandra and I convinced Mom to put the chicken raw on the grill. And yes it took long, but without exposing it to too much high heat while it cooked, it worked!

The foil packets around the chicken (and the lamb in the first photo) contain potatoes and carrots, tossed in olive oil, garlic and green stuff, and just left on the edges of the bbq, turning occasionally, while we cooked the meat. The result? Tender on the inside, crispy-skinned potatoes with nice flavour, and really nice carrots that made us wish we had tossed in some honey with the olive oil.

Of course, Trini don’t necessarily barbecue EVERYTHING with sauce…chicken, lamb, beef, steak-fish…sure..shrimp too I am certain…but we’re a people interested in food generally. So I am sure there are nuff people out there who bbq hot dogs and burgers too. And kebabs with olive oil dressing. And veggies straight on the grill. I mean, what else is that roadside favourite roast corn?

One thing you do have to keep in mind about the Trini BBQ culture…if someone comes up to you and says “ey, we having a barbecue next weekend…”, get your wallet ready. Chances are the next words will be “I have some tickets here to sell. Is for the child school/mosque/church/mandir/sick person”.

Yes. In T&T the BBQ has become almost synonymous with a fundraiser.* It’s the method of choice for all – sell some tickets, buy some boxes,** fire up some coals, fry the rice and boil the potato for the salad…and fix-up. It’s a time-proven technique for which everyone knows the routine and can lend a hand. In fact the Q has become so common, that it has given rise to variations in the true spirit of the country. Chinese-Q - keep the fry rice, but use chinese-style chicken*** and chow mein. Curry-Q – roti (mostly paratha/buss-up shut), with curried chicken, channa and aloo and maybe pumpkin or curry mango. Veggie-Q - this can be any of the Qs without the meat, and some additional veggie preparation. I think we’re still missing out on some demographic, however, and I look forward to the Syrian/Lebanese-Q (or maybe Mediterranean-Q or Arabian-Q). I’ve gotten pelau in boxes before, but not sure why or where…was that a Creole-Q?

Now, if someone comes up to you and says, “we going to bbq tonight” as opposed to “having a bbq”, you might be safe to just walk with your belly and enjoy the goodness.

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* I have seen a similar BBQ for fundraising in Guyana, but I am not sure how pervasive it is or if there are other variations here.
** Who here has never folded boxes??
*** In the words of Alton Brown, that’s another show…

Of course, back then, I really didn’t know for sure the names of what I had eaten! But thanks to Flickr, and a helpful comment* from a Curaçao flickrite, I can now inform my readers. Starting from the pastry at the front left and moving clockwise -

• Tèrt (cupe cake), a small crusty bottom filled with prunes. (recipe in papiamentu)
• Kokada (the dark brown one), grated coconut in brown sugar glaze (this is the one that tasted like tulum)
• Tentalaria (the white one), ground cashews in a sugar cream (the one that reminded me somewhat of peyra)
• Panseiku (peanuts chunks), praline of toasted peanuts, in a brown-sugar brittle (we all have nutcakes!)
• Ko’i Lechi (bar) meaning literally milk thing, caramel bar (fudge!, the Trini kind, hard and sugary)

Another view of the plate.

Hope you enjoyed the revisit to Curaçao…or at least the sweets of Curaçao!

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* yes, yes, this comment was from a year ago, but it’s about time I blogged it! And make my goal of 2 posts in July.

…Rhodes and his crew explored some of the culinary highlights that Trinidad and Tobago has to offer. This included a river lime in Lopinot, a trip to Maracas Bay and a tour of the Chaguanas market, with top local chef Khalid Mohammed as their guide. They sampled doubles which were declared the firm favourite, closely followed by saheena and bake and shark. After the market expedition, the crew had dinner at Khalid Mohammed’s Chaud, where they feasted on the produce purchased at the market. ”

Trinidad Express story.

This sounds like something I’d want to see. Especially after the disappointment of Alton Brown not making it down to Trinidad and Tobago! I wonder how much of their experience will make it to the final programme.

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P.S. Thanks to Trig - this is part of Rhodes Across the Caribbean on UKTV Food.

Cynthia, of Tastes Like Home
, with the gorgeous photos and delicious foods, has published her Caribbean Cookbook and it is available from Amazon.com from November 30, 2008! it will be released on January 23, 2009! Until then you can order the book from the publishers.

Cynthia is a Guyanese, living in Barbados, who writes a food column and blogs about food. She’s adventurous in her cooking, yet very nostalgic and passionate about the food of her childhood, her homeland and the Caribbean at large. I am sure the book will be great. It will certainly look phenomenal if her photos are the standard!

Congratulations Cynthia!