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It’s well-known that visitors from around the world visit our shores to get a taste of our local cuisine—from food critic Anthony Bourdain to travel vlogger Nicholas Nuvan, foreigners have become admirers of our native dishes.
But what of Trinis travelling and living overseas, taking our culinary traditions to introduce them to the people in those countries? This isn’t unusual in the United States and Canada, where a large contingent of the Caribbean diaspora resides, but in non-anglophone spaces, it’s fairly less common.
This is what Carla and Justin Audroing had in mind when they launched Trini Bites in their home of the past five years, Paris, France.
Carla Audroing spoke with Loop News about moving to France with her husband and two young daughters, her passion for Trinbagonian cuisine and her drive to share it with others.
Settling in and starting small
Born and bred Trinbagionians, the couple decided to take advantage of Justin’s French citizenship to broaden their options for where they could raise their two young daughters and expand their respective careers.
​“When we had our kids, we wanted to settle down somewhere,” she shared. “It was a decision I questioned a lot in the first few years [but] we’re now settling down properly into the life and culture.”
Audroing spoke of the rough start when the young family first moved to Paris back in 2019, getting adjusted, along with some less-than-pleasant interactions before eventually finding her tribe.
A maritime consultant by profession, Audroing enjoys cooking for her family and for others and began sharing her food with her colleagues at work.
“I used to cook for my coworkers,” she shared. “During the pandemic, when everyone was making doubles, we started to do it too. I took for my coworkers to try Trinidad food [and] everyone really, really liked it.” She mentioned that her Indian colleagues were particularly fond of the doubles, saying that it reminded them of food from back home.
The positive reviews from her colleagues, a relatively international bunch, encouraged the couple to start thinking about expanding their reach and developing their Trini cooking into a concrete business idea.
In December 2021, they rented their apartment building’s recreational area to host a tasting for the other residents, this time, adding sweet treats such as coconut fudge and black cake to the menu. The couple used the event as market research to gauge responses from the public and to get an understanding of what flavours they may have to adjust to adapt to the French palate without watering down the authenticity of the dishes. Soon after, they launched into doing Trini-style lunches for their neighbours.
While the responses were mostly positive, Audroing mentioned that many of the older residents weren’t too fond of the fact that they had to eat the doubles with their hands whereas the younger crowd were more open to the idea of non-Western concepts of street food meant to be eaten in this way. Taking this into account, they began offering cutlery.
Red beans and rice, stewed chicken, stewed pork and curry dishes were among some of the meals on the Audroings’ menu, which quickly became a hit with their customers.
Justin being a gourmet chef, this venture gave him the opportunity to put his culinary training to use, experimenting with local flavours and using the ingredients found in Europe to mirror that of the local products for maximum authenticity.
Venturing into the event space
Ever eager to make Caribbean connections in her new environment, Audroing came across an ad for Paris steelband group Calypsociation’s 30th anniversary event in July of last year and saw it as an opportunity to offer their services.
“We contacted them and told them we do Trini food and said ‘Could we come and do doubles?’” The response was an instant yes, as the organisers thought the pair would help to give the event more of an authentic feel. “It was very, very successful,” Audroing said. “People were lining up—long, long lines.”
The event offered an excellent networking opportunity, allowing the pair to begin making their way into Trinbagonian and other Caribbean spaces with requests to appear at other events.
“Word began to spread among the French pan community,” she said, and she soon became known as “the doubles woman” among the community of Trinbagonians living in Paris.
By May, the couple found themselves taking the business outside of Paris for the first time, to Nantes, for Panfest, an all-day steelpan festival organised by the city’s resident band, Calyps’Atlantic—coached by our very own Duvone Stewart—which saw some six bands from various French cities come together for a full day of steelpan music and good vibes.
The event itself was a first, the massive undertaking of uniting several bands in one venue. As with the Paris event the previous year, the Audroing’s doubles would be the perfect culinary touch.
Once again, Trini Bites was well received; the couple crossed paths with a handful of other Trinbagonians while in Nantes, including one homesick Trinbagonian who travelled from a nearby town to get her fix of local culture.
Keeping the culture alive overseas
Audroing spoke of the sense of pride she is able to draw from preparing these meals on a larger scale and sees expansion as a way forward, aiming to launch the first Trinibagonian food spot in France.
“I’m amazed that there isn’t one already; French people love to try new food and different restaurants,” she said. “I want people to experience Trini culture—I think we’re so underrepresented here.”
For Audroing, preparing her native cuisine in a foreign place is not only a side hustle, but a means of staying rooted to her culture, not only for herself, but for her daughters, who, apart from visits back home here and there, won’t have an attachment to Trinidad and Tobago as strong as the ones their parents do.
“I see the food business as more than a means to money,” she explained. [My daughters] eat the food [but] they don’t connect to Trinidad in the way that I do and Justin does. Food is one of the ways that they make that connection. For us, this is keeping our culture alive.”
Check out Trini Bites on Facebook for more information.  (Source: The Loopm October 20m 2024)