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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Christmas in July

...mid-year observance helping to break pandemic fatigue

by

Gillian Caliste
1448 days ago
20210725

When life gives you lemons, make lemon zest for your ponche de crème! At least, that is what some peo­ple in T&T are do­ing to­day as they cel­e­brate “Christ­mas in Ju­ly”. Based on so­cial me­dia com­ments, this year, many peo­ple have been mak­ing the most of the mid-year ob­ser­vance, wel­com­ing it as a much-need­ed re­prieve from 16 months of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Since Ju­ly 1, some have been clean­ing, paint­ing and trans­form­ing their homes with Christ­mas dé­cor while en­joy­ing the sweet strains of parang and Christ­mas oldies or bing­ing on Christ­mas movies. Christ­mas lovers have been busi­ly prepar­ing pastelles–both meat and ve­g­an–ham, turkey, sor­rel, gin­ger beer, ponche de crème, wines and oth­er Christ­mas fare, while oth­ers are buy­ing some of their food ready-made or are hav­ing it all catered.

It has been stat­ed that the very first Christ­mas in Ju­ly was cel­e­brat­ed at Key­stone Camp in Bre­vard, North Car­oli­na. The all-girls sum­mer camp held a Christ­mas in Ju­ly week­end cel­e­bra­tion, dur­ing the sum­mer of 1933, com­plete with car­ollers, a Christ­mas tree, fake snow, a gift ex­change, and even a sur­prise vis­it from San­ta Claus him­self. The camp, it was ex­plained, con­tin­ued the tra­di­tion each year and slow­ly the tra­di­tion be­gan to take off in the South—and even­tu­al­ly spread around the coun­try.

Ac­cord­ing to oth­er ex­pla­na­tions, Christ­mas in Ju­ly has be­come pop­u­lar in the South­ern hemi­sphere where warm and cold sea­sons are the op­po­site to coun­tries in the North. Peo­ple want­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence a win­ter feel for Christ­mas and start­ed cel­e­brat­ing in Ju­ly, in the peak of their win­ter. It has been gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty lo­cal­ly with var­i­ous events and sales hav­ing been held in pre-COVID times.

Al­so keep­ing the cel­e­bra­tion alive in 2021 is the Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz. They will host their “Christ­mas in Ju­ly” theme next Sat­ur­day, Ju­ly 31, from 6 am. “We're mo­ti­vat­ed by a lot of Tri­nis who come home dur­ing the sum­mer hol­i­days when their chil­dren are out of school and they ex­press how they miss all the sea­son­al treats that are not avail­able at this time. So that's what we're hop­ing to of­fer with Christ­mas in Ju­ly; a taste of all those treats–the sor­rel, black cake, ponche de crème– and we're bring­ing out Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions and try­ing to cre­ate a re­al­ly fes­tive at­mos­phere to make it an en­joy­able ex­pe­ri­ence,” the mar­ket's dig­i­tal con­tent lead, Rhon­da Chan Soo, told Sun­day Guardian.

At its home, Up­per Sad­dle Road, San­ta Cruz, the Green Mar­ket has brought to­geth­er lo­cal farm­ers, grow­ers, food ven­dors, ar­ti­sans and con­sumers for al­most a decade, pro­mot­ing pos­i­tive at­ti­tudes to­wards lo­cal­ly-pro­duced goods and ser­vices and sup­port­ing sus­tain­able liveli­hoods. Pri­or to the pan­dem­ic, the open-air com­mu­ni­ty at­mos­phere had been a mag­net for fam­i­lies on Sat­ur­days. The mar­ket's spe­cial themes like “East­er Eggstrav­a­gan­za” and “Hon­ey Fes­ti­val” through­out the year pro­vid­ed an ex­tra treat, with sell­ers tweak­ing their in­gre­di­ents or en­tire prod­uct to match the par­tic­u­lar oc­ca­sion.

Sell­ers are al­ways in­no­vat­ing and build­ing re­la­tion­ships with cus­tomers; a process which con­tin­ued dur­ing the re­cent lock­down as the mar­ket opened from 6 am to 1 pm on Sat­ur­days at re­duced ca­pac­i­ty, with farm­ers, gar­den grow­ers and ven­dors car­ry­ing pre-pack­aged prod­ucts, Chan Soo said.

In­di­cat­ing that food would be the main at­trac­tion at their event on Sat­ur­day due to pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions, she said on­ly take­away would be of­fered and strict COVID guide­lines would be fol­lowed.

Pastelle with “Chutney Daddy” sorrel chutney from SproutsT&T.

Pastelle with “Chutney Daddy” sorrel chutney from SproutsT&T.

'The month of Ju­ly has come to be as­so­ci­at­ed with food'

The Green Mar­ket has al­so fea­tured Christ­mas pastelle com­pe­ti­tions. Jezue Cor­reia of Cor­reia’s Cater­ing Ltd won the com­pe­ti­tion in 2018 and 2020 with his fam­i­ly's recipe for beef and pork pastelles, and came in sec­ond in 2019. Speak­ing with Sun­day Guardian, he said that the month of Ju­ly has come to be as­so­ci­at­ed with food, es­pe­cial­ly Christ­mas favourites.

“The best flavours come around Christ­mas time, so why not have that more than once a year,” he said. Trac­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence of his grand­moth­er and moth­er, Cor­reia said his fam­i­ly's busi­ness boasts over 40 years in cater­ing and more than ten years in pastelle mak­ing. Their beef, pork and beef, chick­en, fish, and lentils and spinach pastelles are al­so car­ried at pre­mi­um su­per­mar­kets, he said.

Ve­g­an pastelles have stood out in re­cent years, Chan Soo in­formed. Bethany-Kay Da Sil­va and her fam­i­ly of SproutsT&T will par­tic­i­pate for a sec­ond time in Christ­mas in Ju­ly at the mar­ket. They en­tered the pastelle-mak­ing com­pe­ti­tion last year and de­cid­ed to cre­ate a ve­g­an pastelle to set them­selves apart from the tra­di­tion­al meat pastelle mak­ers. Made with lentils, mush­rooms which they sell at the mar­ket and their or­gan­ic home-grown beansprouts, ac­cord­ing to Da Sil­va, the pastelle has all the flavours of a clas­sic beef pastelle, as well as a sim­i­lar tex­ture, and was well-re­ceived at the com­pe­ti­tion. They do or­ders for ve­g­an pastelles at present which pair nice­ly with their “Chut­ney Dad­dy” brand sor­rel chut­ney, an­oth­er prod­uct they will be bring­ing to the mar­ket on Sat­ur­day.

“(The sor­rel chut­ney) start­ed as a fam­i­ly tra­di­tion for Christ­mas and my grand­moth­er asked if my fa­ther would make a batch to sell dur­ing Christ­mas in Ju­ly.”

Since then, sales of the savoury, slight­ly sweet and spicy chunky rel­ish have tak­en off, Da Sil­va said, adding that they were look­ing for­ward to the fes­tiv­i­ties, though dif­fer­ent this year.

“We re­al­ly en­joy the fan­fare and fes­tiv­i­ties, dress­ing for the oc­ca­sion, dec­o­rat­ing our prod­ucts and keep­ing our ta­ble live­ly and spir­it­ed,” she said.

Mean­while, Pa­tri­cia Nep­tune, plagued by per­sis­tent di­ges­tive is­sues years ago while va­ca­tion­ing in Flori­da, her host rec­om­mend­ed kom­bucha, a fer­ment­ed tea said to have health ben­e­fits, and she found re­lief. Come Sat­ur­day, Nep­tune, of In­ter­na­tion­al Beau­ty and Well­ness, will be bring­ing her stocks of sor­rel kom­bucha to pa­trons at the mar­ket. Op­er­at­ing out of her store at Arou­ca and at pop up mar­kets, she has made or­gan­ic kom­bucha for 18 years and her prod­ucts are al­so car­ried by phar­ma­cies.

“The re­lief I felt in such a short time drove me to em­brace the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­cept a train­ing pro­gramme. On my re­turn, I de­cid­ed that since we have such ex­ot­ic lo­cal fruits, why not use them to en­hance the orig­i­nal for­mu­la. The feed­back from cus­tomers sug­gests that's what sets our kom­bucha apart,” she said.

Her reg­u­lar flavours are mint, mau­by, gin­ger, orig­i­nal and she pro­duces sor­rel, man­go, berry and sour­sop sea­son­al­ly.

Pa­trons of the mar­ket have al­so been snap­ping up re­frig­er­a­tor and oven han­dle cov­ers by Jil­lian An­tho­ny of Ibukun de­signs. An­tho­ny typ­i­cal­ly de­signed jew­el­ry for women and men us­ing nat­ur­al and re­cy­clable ma­te­ri­als, but start­ed mak­ing han­dle cov­ers af­ter a friend gift­ed her some for her fridge and com­ment­ed that she should try do­ing them.

An­tho­ny re­called ask­ing neigh­bours and friends to mea­sure their fridge, oven and mi­crowave han­dles, so she could do dif­fer­ent sizes and she has gar­nered favourable re­spons­es at a num­ber of craft mar­kets in which she par­tic­i­pates. The cov­ers go on and come off eas­i­ly as they have vel­cro snaps and An­tho­ny has al­so made re­versible ones.

Peo­ple have been lap­ping them up be­cause they are prac­ti­cal for keep­ing fin­ger­prints, wa­ter­marks and even rust caused by hands which may have salt or oth­er cor­ro­sive sub­stances off ap­pli­ances, es­pe­cial­ly ones made of stain­less steel. And they al­so make ex­cel­lent gifts, she said.

“I worked at a com­pa­ny for 22 years and they didn't make me per­ma­nent, so I de­cid­ed I would just leave and fol­low my pas­sion; craft,” she said.

An­tho­ny who said it has been tough not be­ing able to see her two sons who left to live abroad in 2019, said she wel­comed Christ­mas in Ju­ly as a time to com­mem­o­rate the sea­son she adores most. She said Trinida­di­ans, in gen­er­al, love Christ­mas and the am­bi­ence at the mar­ket dur­ing the Christ­mas in Ju­ly event kin­dles the spir­it of the larg­er fes­tive De­cem­ber sea­son for one and all.

 Roast duck bao with Chinese pickles and Hoisin drizzle by Yu Wan Mai Gourmet.

Roast duck bao with Chinese pickles and Hoisin drizzle by Yu Wan Mai Gourmet.

Ven­dors be­come in­ven­tive

A cu­ri­ous del­i­ca­cy first cre­at­ed by Can­dace Chow of Yu Wan Mai Gourmet at Christ­mas has been catch­ing on at the Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz.

“The re­ac­tion to it when peo­ple eat it is al­ways the same. They just stop in their tracks and ei­ther close their eyes or moan,” she laughed

“Many cus­tomers liken it to a Chi­nese dou­bles. I've had peo­ple, be­fore COVID, stand up right in front me, burst it open and eat it and I see the de­light in their faces.”

In­spired by the Tai­wanese gua bao, Chow makes baos (which rough­ly mean bread or buns), a flour cas­ing that is steamed like pow and turns out like a soft, fluffy cloud. Un­like pows, baos are open-faced and filled with meat and condi­ments based on the cus­tomer's re­quests af­ter the dough is cooked. Chow fus­es Asian in­gre­di­ents like five spice, Chi­nese cook­ing wine and sweet and savoury Hoisin sauce with lo­cal sea­son­ings like chadon beni in her pork, chick­en and ve­g­an ver­sions. She serves up her baos with sauces and condi­ments in­clud­ing home-made chow chow, sor­rel rel­ish and Chi­nese pick­les. For the Christ­mas in Ju­ly event, she will do a herbed mush­room stuff­ing for her ve­g­an baos.

“I my­self am a fu­sion. My fa­ther is from Hong Kong and my moth­er is a Tri­ni–Chi­nese–Span­ish–callaloo. I grew up in a house­hold with two cul­tures.”

She said her fa­ther who came to Trinidad around 1973 when he was 13, did not like Tri­ni food ini­tial­ly. Over­time he start­ed adapt­ing and end­ed up falling in love with lo­cal cui­sine. He be­gan do­ing his own spin on lo­cal dish­es “...and that is where I got it from.”

“In the 80s there was a Chi­nese (TV) show called Chin Chow's Kitchen, so he would have had the first Chi­nese cook­ing show in Trinidad. My both par­ents are ac­tu­al­ly re­al­ly good chefs and I learned to cook from my grand­moth­er.”

Chow launched her Asian fu­sion baos in 2018 at a Christ­mas fair at NA­PA, of­fer­ing ham baos with chow chow slaw and turkey baos with a sor­rel rel­ish.

The pas­sion­ate home-cook who is proud that her food is made with meat from lo­cal farm­ers has since built up a fol­low­ing on so­cial me­dia, as well as reg­u­lar cus­tomers at the Green Mar­ket as peo­ple are al­ways telling friends about her baos. She said she of­ten finds her­self hav­ing to ex­plain what they are to new cus­tomers.

Chow said she loves Christ­mas, tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas car­ols and clas­sic lo­cal Christ­mas mu­sic and cel­e­brates Christ­mas in Ju­ly by lis­ten­ing to Sweet 100 which pro­motes the theme while mak­ing her prod­ucts for the mar­ket.

“What it means to me is a nice break from the mo­not­o­ny of the year to just be cheer­ful and child-like. That in­no­cence...it just takes you back to that time. While I'm prepar­ing the food, I play the mu­sic, so it's al­most as if the food gets in­fused with the Christ­mas vibes.

“At the Green Mar­ket it's fun to see what the ven­dors come up with in terms of the Christ­mas flavours and how in­ven­tive they get. I al­so chal­lenge my­self as to how I am go­ing to use the tra­di­tion­al Tri­ni flavours and add a twist. It's fun.”

Oth­er Asian fu­sion dish­es like Hoisin BBQ wings, and sea­son­al fruity iced teas are part of Chow's menu when she ap­pears at oth­er pop-up mar­kets and food fairs.

The pan­dem­ic gave her the im­pe­tus to pro­duce more con­sis­tent­ly. A friend kept en­cour­ag­ing her to go along and she has missed on­ly a cou­ple Sat­ur­days at the Green Mar­ket, she said. She ad­mit­ted that it has been scary to take the full leap and start up a busi­ness and there have been chal­lenges.

Sup­ply­ing fresh food at the mar­ket means prep­ping at least two days in ad­vance and get­ting up at 2 am every Sat­ur­day.

“So it's a labour of love, but the cus­tomers have been sup­port­ing and the jour­ney has been sat­is­fy­ing.

“The old­er I get, I re­alise you have to do what you love. Of course you have to make mon­ey. You have to be smart in what you do, but when you do some­thing you love it doesn't feel like work,” the 40-year-old said.

She said while she is still ob­serv­ing how the re-open­ing of food places and in­creas­ing prices of in­gre­di­ents will af­fect her sales, she has her loy­al cus­tomers and is open to cater­ing and oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“It's a very volatile time. Noth­ing is pre­dictable any­more. You go and see what the day brings and every day it's some­thing new...you just have to keep piv­ot­ing.”

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