​Any­one from T&T who has dined on au­then­tic In­di­an dish­es, im­me­di­ate­ly re­alis­es that In­do-Trinida­di­an cook­ing is a Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ence all on its own and owes as much to its evo­lu­tion in the west as its ori­gins in the east. Short­ly af­ter the ar­rival of In­di­an In­den­tured Im­mi­grants as a source of cheap, re­li­able labour, Trinidad's Colo­nial Gov­ern­ment, un­der Lord Har­ris (1846-54), re­alised that the new­com­ers had by ne­ces­si­ty, to be fed on food that they were ac­cus­tomed to in In­dia or else they would suf­fer mal­nu­tri­tion.
Thus, large quan­ti­ties of food­stuff be­gan ar­riv­ing in the colony. Pad­dy rice (Trinidad was al­ready fa­mil­iar with cre­ole hill rice or red rice, grown by ex-Amer­i­can black sol­diers of the Com­pa­ny Vil­lages), split peas (dhal), ghee, and cur­ry spices, all orig­i­nal­ly sourced ex­clu­sive­ly for the In­di­ans, be­gan to find their way in­to shops and soon formed a foun­da­tion­al part of the na­tion­al cui­sine.
For new In­do-Trinida­di­ans, the com­mis­sary of their as­signed es­tates was sup­posed to sup­ply them with food ra­tions and cloth­ing for the first year of their five-year con­tract. This manda­to­ry reg­u­la­tion was of­ten ig­nored, and some un­scrupu­lous planters even de­duct­ed the cost of the ra­tions from the pit­tance paid to the In­di­ans. Strict­ly speak­ing, the stan­dard al­lowance was as fol­lowed: For every male over 18 years of age per month: 45lbs of rice, 9lbs dhal, 1/4 gal­lon ghee or co­conut oil, 1 1/2 lbs salt, 6 lbs salt­-fish, 2 lbs onions and chill­i­est. Women and chil­dren re­ceived half the ra­tions of men.
At the de­pot for in­com­ing In­di­ans (up to 1917) at Nel­son Is­land, pro­vi­sions for the tran­sients con­sist­ed of rice, pump­kin, fresh­ly-slaugh­tered mut­ton, and cha­p­at­tis. Most es­tates al­lowed the In­di­ans pro­vi­sion grounds to sup­ple­ment the ra­tions. Where gar­den plots were al­lot­ted, and on small home­steads af­ter their con­tracts ex­pired, the im­mi­grants grew an abun­dance of food, which by the 1880s had made them the pri­ma­ry source of veg­eta­bles, root crops and milk in the is­land.
Man­goes were a key in­gre­di­ent, orig­i­nat­ing of course in In­dia, as were sev­er­al va­ri­eties of squash, in­clud­ing jhingee and lowkie. By in­fus­ing the bare in­gre­di­ents of the com­mis­sari­at is­sue with cur­ry and adding the boun­ty of the veg­etable gar­dens, whole­some talka­rees were cre­at­ed.
These were large­ly en­joyed on­ly by the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty as good, hearty peas­ant fare un­til the ad­vent of the roti-shop in the 1940s. With the com­ing of thou­sands of Amer­i­can sol­diers to the army and air­- force bases on the is­land, roti and cur­ry found a new and en­thu­si­as­tic con­nois­seur.
Per­haps the great­est ex­am­ple of cul­tur­al fu­sion and the flag­ship of In­do-Trinida­di­an food is the ubiq­ui­tous dou­bles, which was born in the 1940s when an en­ter­pris­ing ven­dor named Mr Ali com­bined cur­ried chick­peas (chan­na) with two fried dough slices (bara) and gave Trinidad and To­ba­go its sta­ple fast food.
To­day, roti, dou­bles and oth­er In­do-Tri­ni fare has spread to Eu­rope and Amer­i­ca through the di­as­po­ra, and re­mains as wild­ly pop­u­lar as ever.
Source:  Virtual Museum of T&T 2012

Here's a perfect example of what Trinidad and Tobago needs to invest in.
Meet the young, assiduous and very hardworking Jesse Harripersad of Williamsville, a 22 year old admirable farmer.
Jesse is a brilliant and respectable young man that studies Agriculture at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. I've interacted with Jesse several times only to be inspired by his love for agricultural growth.
Additionally Jesse is a well rounded individual who very strategically balances his life and is very disciplined. He rigidly follows the 4:00 am mornings working his land and caring for his produce, followed by his active university class participation and believe it or not he is also an extremely talented young cricketer with great swing bowling ability and a test player's attitude.
This young man is definitely one for the future and Promote TT strongly supports his ventures.
Jesse takes pride in feeding our nation.

You may not know that while I am now a professionally trained Chef (love always for the Algonquin College School of Hospitality and Tourism), my first degree is in Chemical Engineering (❤️uOttawa Génie Engineering) and I spent most of my career as an Engineer and Manager at Environment Canada.
So it gives me great pride and joy to introduce for the first time Baccanalle Sorrel Chai Tea. Not only can you have a “cuppa” anytime, we now have a zero-waste process based on our ingredients and essentially a full line of Sorrel products (and more to come) - all #vegan and #glutenfree
1- Sorrel (traditional Caribbean Hibiscus drink)
2-Cranberry Sorrel Compote (made with locally sourced cranberries)
3-Sorrel Chai Tea
We look forward to sharing them with you -a great gift or enjoyable for the Holiday season!
Find us at Etsy Made in Canada Ottawa, Beechwood Market Thanksgiving Saturday and Ottawa Farmers' Market the last two weekends leading up to Christmas.
Cheerfully Made Goods + Markets #613etsy #etsy #artisans #ottawa#caribbeanlifestyle #trinistyle #613food #613food #ottawafood #foodies

Trinidadian Fallon Seymour is serving up Trini and Caribbean flavours at Pearl’s Caribbean, a colourful, cozy restaurant located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Here, you’re sure to get all of the foods you’re accustomed to back home in the Caribbean like bake and shark, crab and dumplin’, shrimp roti and jerk chicken.
The authentic Caribbean restaurant has been cast into the spotlight after being recently featured on a food segment, Food Adventure, which aired on American cable news television channel NY1.
Seymour named the restaurant after her grandmother, Pearl, whom she fondly referred to as “Pearlie”. Unsurprisingly, she credits her grandmother for her love of cooking.
The Trinidadian restaurant owner said she ensures that visitors to her restaurant are given the full Trini-Caribbean experience.
“I really wanted the customer to feel like they were transported… I tried to put Trini flags everywhere and Trini sayings, and always try to represent.”
Her customer favourite, crab and dumplin’ is made with only the best ingredients.
“It’s a lot of curry. Chief curry from Trinidad, pimento, garlic, coconut milk, chadon beni, of course. Trinis put chadon beni on everything.”
“When you come and eat crab and dumpling, you feel like a true Trini,” she chuckled.  
Host Lawrence Weibman was treated to a spicy delight of crisp golden bake and pepper shrimp – a special recipe passed down by Seymour’s father. A red-faced Weibman gave the spicy dish a thumbs up.
“Trinidadian cuisine, right here at Pearl’s Caribbean in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Fallon will take good care of you, but be careful! She may look nice but her food has some serious spice.”  If you are on facebook - check out the full segment by clicking on this link
https://www.facebook.com/pearlsbakeandshark/videos/249184022409739/
Source:  The Loop, Sep 20, 2018

Thousands of viewers have learned to cook Caribbean favourites, fusion recipes and international cuisine through Trini Cooking with Natasha. The Youtube Channel, led by Trinidadian Natasha Laggan, keeps attracting fans. And it all started with a simple video camera in her home kitchen in 2015.
“I was born in TT but after I got married in my late 20s, I moved to the US,” the culinary enthusiast noted.
“I learnt to cook from my paternal grandmother and my mom while growing up as a child. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with her before school and sometimes after,” she recalled. “I would get up at 3 am help my mom prepare for her food business then change into my school uniform and work with her until it was time to leave for school. I believe this really instilled work ethic and helped me to be humble today. I was never ashamed to do it and I want the younger generation reading this to know... don’t ever feel ashamed because it’s these core values that will shape you into a great human being.”
Laggan's move to the US really solidified her long-held love for local cuisine. “I began making notes of the recipes I missed from back home and would start recreating them during the day while my husband was at work. In sharing the images, people would also ask me to share the recipe, but in today’s multimedia environment, that wasn’t enough. So, I eventually sent friends videos of me preparing and cooking the recipes. The natural result was that one day a friend of mine suggested that I post it to Youtube, so I did,” she told WMN. 
The rest wasn’t history for Laggan, at least not yet. “You could tell in my earlier videos, that I wasn’t too sure of myself on video. For the cooking yes, I was sure, but I wasn’t yet comfortable in front of the camera,” she recalled. Soon after that, her first child was born, a few weeks earlier than planned – throwing her schedule into disarray. Laggan spent her day, as much as possible, at the hospital with her son who remained under observation, and her nights cooking – which for her was therapeutic.
“Motherhood added its own demands to my day, but I continued as best as I could with recording my recipes and posting them. In some of those videos after my son came home, you could hear him cry at which point I would cut the filming and cooking, tend to him and return. I started off with a camcorder I had at home but eventually with the help of a friend’s expertise in photography, I would spend a little more time looking at the staging of my finished dishes, the lighting, angles and more. My staging and recording area was created using many DIY projects which inspired me.”
The aim for continuous improvement began to yield benefits soon enough – in the form of views, likes, follows and fans. She later revealed herself on camera for the very first time just a few weeks ago with the help of other social media celebrity food enthusiasts – Eat Ah Food and the Foodie Nation brands. “I have done over 1,000 videos in three years; over 700 recipe videos and the rest a combination of vlogs and reviews and in each recipe video, I try to make it as easy to follow as possible so that people can truly learn by following the channel.
"Recently, I expanded into trying to capture the Taste of D Town – by visiting restaurants and showing support for the local Trinidadian restaurants and food-related businesses like the produce vendor and our street food vendors who cook traditionally. Featuring them on my channel also gives them that free exposure so that they can be discovered so they can thrive and share their delicious foods with us. In my travels to places like the Maldives and Bora Bora I have also come across so many other dishes that I aim to recreate so that if I can help others discover food like I have and the joy of cooking, then that would be enough for me.”
While the beginning may not have been part of a larger plan for the at-home mother, she certainly has outlined bigger action items for the future. “I’m currently working on a cookbook for 2019 which is real labour of love, with some innovative approaches to pairing print with social media. In working with my designer, I noticed that some of my earlier photos of recipes don’t live up to the later ones in terms of aesthetic that I want, so I am currently recreating each of the 250 plus recipes so that they can be photographed to the standard that I want to see in the final print,” she pointed out. Not to be outdone by that commitment, the cookbook will also feature an herb reference sheet so that those not too familiar with West Indian herbs can know to get exactly what is needed and will also feature a fridge, freezer and pantry essentials space as well.
She detailed, “For those who are really committed, my new website, islandkitchen.shop, will be the home to my cookbook and will also feature items like the traditional tools , the tawah , dabalah and spices like turmeric, geera etc that you can purchase and have shipped anywhere you need it along with many other kitchen utensils too.”
What started as a simple exercise in sharing with genuine intention has been met in kind with hundreds of thousands of viewers both in the Caribbean and internationally. Of the journey, she said, “I really just want to pass on the knowledge and skills I learnt from generations before me which are traditional, and I hold close to my heart, as I no longer reside in Trinidad.”
Follow her on Instagram @trinicooking19, Facebook Food page ‘Trini Cooking with Natasha Food and Recipe’s and on Twitter @trinicooking19.
Source:  Newsday, September 2018

Trinidad and Tobago’s chocolate is world class.
Tobago Estate’s Laura 45% bar has proven that, securing silver in the Plain/Milk Chocolate category in the 2018 European Bean-to-bar Competition which was judged in Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 10 – June 11.
This is not Laura’s first win, having won gold in the same category in 2017.
The dairy milk chocolate also picked up silver in the Academy of Chocolate 2017 awards and a Great Taste award in 2014.
The winners of The International Chocolate Awards were announced on Thursday.
The Bean-to-bar competition focuses on fine, craft and micro-batch chocolate makers who work directly from cocoa beans to produce plain/origin and flavoured chocolate bars from around Europe.
Winners will go through to the World Final in Florence in October 2018.
The European Bean-to-bar was the Award’s first competition focusing only on bars of all types made by bean-to-bar chocolate makers, for the first time including flavoured inclusion, infusion and filled bars made directly from cacao beans.
This year’s competition saw an improved standard from European micro-batch producers, with both the dark and milk overall ‘Best-in-show’ prizes going to small craft chocolate makers, from Belgium and the UK.
The competition is supported by the Hilton Amsterdam, and bean-to-bar chocolate shop Chocolate.
Source:  The Loop August 2018

A barefoot farmer is making his way through a forest.
Quiet drops of rain tumble steadily through the night, picked out in the light from his torch.
The rusty machete he holds isn’t for cutting down vines or chopping away stubborn branches - it is a defence against thieves.
Lots of other men - farmers like him - are out in the rain, patrolling the forest. For the past three months, they have left their homes every night and made the long journey into the plantations to protect their crop.
But this is not an illegal coca plantation, or anything like it. In fact, these farmers are growing a crop whose name is a byword for something boring.
The men need weapons to guard against robbers who roam the countryside looking for one thing - Madagascan vanilla.
The robberies are often violent. There have been dozens of murders in Madagascar linked to vanilla. Several communities have tried and failed to get protection from armed police.
Some have taken the law into their own hands. Villagers say in a nearby village, a machete-wielding crowd descended on five suspected gangsters - hacking and stabbing them to death.
The killings have yet to be solved by the police. Locals say there is no will or capacity in the police forces to investigate the vanilla thefts - or the mob justice that sometimes follows.
The chief of Leon’s village fears the same thing could happen there. A youngish-looking man, Chief Oreis is wearing shorts and sandals with a bright purple shirt when he stops by Leon’s house to say hello. His expression grows stern when he talks about the vanilla thefts.
“We have to do our best to make sure thieves are not able to steal from us here,” he says. “Because if someone’s livelihood is taken away, they can do anything, even kill.”
Thousands of miles away in London, Oddono’s ice cream shop is tucked between a pizza parlour and a cafe on a busy street in South Kensington.
There’s a plethora of awards on one wall. The owners boast of the finest natural ingredients in their authentic Italian gelato: Valrhona chocolate from France, pistachios from Sicily, hazelnuts from Piedmont.
But last year, one variety of ice cream was missing.
“When I told customers that we didn’t have any vanilla ice cream, many of them were shocked,” says Christian Oddono, who manages the shop.
“I had to explain that we didn’t want to give them bad quality products but also we were never going to use chemicals. Then, they understood.”
The price for last year’s Madagascan vanilla crop was sky high, but Christian found the quality of what he was getting so low that he took vanilla ice cream off his menu.
“The pods had too much moisture in them and some even had a mouldy smell - a sign that the curing process wasn’t done properly,” he says.
“This year I found another, better supplier in Madagascar. The prices are still high, so we’ve had to raise our prices as well, but our customers haven’t complained.
We see a general trend of more customers wanting to eat more authentic food and shying away from chemicals and lab-produced substitutes.”
We are used to seeing vanilla all around us - in candles, cupcakes and creme brulees. But if you’re eating something vanilla-flavoured or smelling something vanilla-scented - it’s probably artificial.
Scientists have been making synthetic vanillin - the compound that gives vanilla its aroma - since the 19th Century. It has been extracted from coal, tar, rice bran, wood pulp and even cow dung.
Today, the vast majority of synthetic vanillin comes from petrochemicals.
It can be 20 times cheaper than the real thing.
The burgeoning interest in “artisanal” food made in a traditional way explains some of the demand for natural vanilla. But much of the rocketing price can be put down to food rules on both sides of the Atlantic.
In Europe and the United States, ice cream labelled “vanilla” must contain natural vanillin extract from vanilla pods. If the flavour comes wholly or partly from artificial sources, the packaging must say “vanilla flavour” or “artificial vanilla”.
Vanilla from vanilla pods will have a taste and potency unique to the area in which it is grown, much like wine. The vanilla from Madagascar has a distinct rummy taste and sweet aroma, which is why ice-cream makers choose it over vanilla from other countries.
And there is more and more pressure on food companies to switch from artificial vanilla to vanilla beans. Big corporations such as Hershey and Nestle have started buying natural vanilla extract for their products in large quantities, which injects more demand into the limited supply chain and raises prices further.
Over the past decade, vanilla prices have gone through dramatic booms and busts.
Madagascar’s 80,000 growers produce more vanilla than any other country - so what happens on the island affects the global industry.
In March 2017, cyclone Enawo struck the island and destroyed much of that year's crop. Two of the largest vanilla-producing regions were hit directly.
Small growers have since struggled to match demand as it takes three to four years for a new plant to produce vanilla pods. Prices have rocketed.
Five years ago, the price of 1kg (2lb 3oz) of vanilla was $20 (£15). In 2018, it briefly became more expensive than silver, reaching a peak of $600 a kilo, before a modest decline to $515 in June.
The still-green beans start to ferment quickly, so buyers must be found fast. Small farmers typically sell green pods to middlemen who gather large amounts to sell on to local exporters.
At this point, the pods do not have the characteristic vanilla smell or taste. The laborious journey - from pollination to curing and drying, and then preparing for export - takes about a year.
The finished product is a brownish-black, heavily wrinkled vanilla bean that is soft, supple and leathery to the touch, with a strong aroma.

The process can be used by speculators to preserve pods that have been harvested too early. They often store them to sell later at higher prices.
But immature or improperly cured beans have a lower vanillin content and often a mouldy taste.
Many farmers choose to pick their pods early themselves to avoid losing everything to thieves in the last months before the harvest.
The government has tried to stop this by setting fixed harvest dates for each village. To hammer the message home, the authorities recently burned 500kg of prematurely picked pods in public.
But there are smaller middlemen who are under immense pressure to get their beans early - and at a lower price. They get cash advances from big exporters - but they must deliver. Waiting until harvest time, when demand exceeds supply, can be risky.
Arman Ramarokootonirina has been working as a middleman buying up vanilla from farmers in Maroantsetra for more than seven years.
There are many unscrupulous new entrants into the industry, he says. It is now flush with cash. “It is the greed of the big bosses that is causing the problem. People get big advances yet they haven’t even planted any vanilla. Then they have to steal it from other people’s gardens to fulfill the orders.”
But for the growers who are able to protect their crops, the high vanilla prices mean one good harvest can be life-changing.
A kilogram of cured beans is worth $400-$500 - a hefty sum in a country where the average annual per capita income is $1,500.
The grandest building in Maroantsetra is the headquarters of one of these exporters. Painted pristine white with dark green trim, it’s a striking contrast to the wooden houses on either side.
Up to four tonnes of vanilla are exported from here every year. Security cameras line the path to the large warehouse at the back of the complex. There are big padlocks on the gates and iron bars criss-cross the windows.
Sylvan Chen runs the place. They pat down the staff at the end of each day to make sure no vanilla is being smuggled out in bags, shoes or underwear.
It’s not vanilla season yet, so the women on the lower floor of the warehouse now are sifting cloves - another spice exported from Madagascar, nowhere near as lucrative as vanilla.
The upper floor is where the vanilla will be stored while it’s being dried. The space is packed to the rafters with cheap foam mattresses. Sylvan sold 2,000 of them last year to farmers, who prefer them to sleeping on traditional woven mats. They’re often handing back the cash Sylvan has just given them for their vanilla.
Times are good for the industry, now that the price of vanilla is so high, Sylvan acknowledges. But there is a fear that short-term gains will cause long-term damage to the quality and reputation of Madagascan vanilla.
“Madagascar’s vanilla is too expensive and people could turn to other countries which are equipped with quality standards. The vanilla sector here may no longer have a future if the quality doesn’t improve”.
Trees and forest that are cut down cannot grow back the same way again - it would take hundreds of years. When this sort of damage occurs, a fragile ecosystem is disrupted. Lemurs will no longer have food here. Plants, insects and animals that relied on a delicate balance start to disappear.
People in Madagascar are worried about its vanilla losing its reputation - but in the national park a fragile ecosystem is being badly damaged to cater for global demand.
It is short-sightedness.

"This is what I grew up with, and what I’m trying to do is share what my mom cooked — it's a tribute to her," Gouvia says. "It's simple things, simple food and I want to share that food with everyone." 

He also notes that the flavors of Trinidad are influenced by a range of cuisines from the island's colonizers like the French, Spanish, Dutch, and English. Even Chinese populations made their way through the Caribbean and left their prints on some of the recipes. 

So while you might know Jamaican callaloo, you might not know the soupier Trinidadian style that Gouvia prepares. Some of the menu items on Norma G's menu aren't totally unfamiliar to Detroit. Callalloo, chicken pelau, jerk chicken, curry goat — these are plates you'll find in some of the city's other Caribbean eateries.

Still, what Norma G's owner/chef Lester Gouvia is doing and preparing is something new in Detroit. Though he's billing his Jefferson-Chalmers eatery — which hosts a soft opening on Thursday — as a Caribbean restaurant, Gouvia was born in Trinidad, and he's offering "Caribbean" dishes as they're prepared there, rather than in Jamaica, for example. 

"There are similarities in the names [of Caribbean dishes], but not necessarily the taste," Gouvia tells Metro Times. Even more specifically, he describes his dishes as comfort food like those recipes that his mom — Norma G — prepared in her kitchen when Gouvia was a boy. ​His chicken pelau is a jumble of rice, chicken, house seasoning, squash, pigeon peas, and peppers that Gouvia "bakes to a golden brown." Jerk chicken gets the comfort food treatment in the jerk chicken pasta, in which the bird and peppers are mixed in a sauce of cream and blended cheeses. 

Oxtail sliders or jerk chicken sliders can be paired with mac and cheese or Trinidadian potato salad. Norma's also offers a list of four vegan options, including melongene -- diced eggplant and sweet onion sautéed in a homemade marinara sauce and served with jasmine rice. 

Among the appetizers are codfish balls made with dried codfish that's sautéed with herbs, vegetables, house seasoning, and mashed potatoes. It's blended together into a ball, fried, and served with a garlic or chipotle or garlic horseradish mayo. Doubles are "classic Trinidadian street food" with chick peas sautéed in house spices with onions that's all served between housemade fried dough. It's accompanied by a tamarind sauce and mango chutney. 

Norma G's offers a full bar along with a selection of pops and a sorrel beverage along with coffee and tea. Desserts are made with Wally's frozen custard, and includes the Trini Trifecta with vanilla frozen custard, Trinidadian rum and cinnamon. 

The other thing that sets Norma's apart is the vibe. It's a sit-down restaurant, and it's casual and colorful, but also tasteful. There really isn't much like it in Detroit. 

"What was in my head was the bright colors — when you think of the Caribbean, you think of bright colors and Carnival, and that's reflected in here without being crazy," Gouvia says. "There are no seashells or palm trees ... you can do things tastefully and be colorful and it doesn’t have to be cheesy."Gouvia was born in Trinidad but moved to Brooklyn as a young boy. A job in the financial industry led him to metro Detroit where he only intended to stay a few years, but he loved the area and never left. Jefferson-Chalmers appealed to him more than downtown, Midtown, or other neighborhoods because he feels that Norma's will have a greater impact there. 

Gouvia worked with SWOT City to pull together funding for the roughly $450,000 project from a variety of sources, including a $60,000 Motor City Match Grant. He's leasing the building from Jefferson East, Inc. 

Norma G’s is located at 14628 E. Jefferson Ave. in Detroit. 
Source: Detroit Metro Times, August 2018