Shas­tri Boodan

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

There were no po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions, re­li­gious dif­fer­ences or racial bar­ri­ers when the aro­ma of fresh­ly made dou­bles filled the air on Re­pub­lic Day.

For a few hours, the hum­ble dou­bles—two pieces of bara wrapped around sea­soned chan­na and topped with condi­ments—took cen­tre stage as peo­ple from across Trinidad and To­ba­go gath­ered at Brent­wood, Ch­agua­nas, to eat, cheer and com­pete in a cel­e­bra­tion of one of the coun­try’s most beloved street foods.

The oc­ca­sion was the first So­lis Cred­it dou­bles-eat­ing com­pe­ti­tion, which at­tract­ed scores of par­tic­i­pants and spec­ta­tors of dif­fer­ent ages, races and re­li­gions, all unit­ed by a com­mon love for dou­bles.

And when the fi­nal bara had been swal­lowed, An­drel Job of Bel­mont emerged as the cham­pi­on in the fastest dou­bles-eat­ing cat­e­go­ry with­out pep­per, while Stephon Burke of La Hor­quet­ta claimed the ti­tle in the pep­per dou­bles com­pe­ti­tion.

The com­peti­tors were giv­en three min­utes to con­sume as many dou­bles as pos­si­ble.

Job man­aged to put away eight and a half dou­bles but be­lieved he could have reached ten had the dou­bles ar­rived at a faster pace.

He com­plained that de­lays in serv­ing the dou­bles had cost him valu­able eat­ing time.

“I would have eat­en ten,” Job said, ex­plain­ing that he had been train­ing for the com­pe­ti­tion for some time and could con­sume three dou­bles in about 50 sec­onds.

For Job, how­ev­er, eat­ing dou­bles is noth­ing new.

He eats dou­bles every day and has de­vel­oped his own ideas about where to find the best ones.

His favourite, he said, comes from Sauce Dou­bles in Curepe.

While Job con­cen­trat­ed on speed with­out pep­per, Burke took on a dif­fer­ent chal­lenge — dou­bles heav­i­ly loaded with one of the coun­try’s favourite but some­times feared condi­ments.

Burke, who ad­mit­ted that he is not a lover of pep­per, nev­er­the­less man­aged to con­sume six pep­per-laden dou­bles to take the ti­tle.

The pep­per was so po­tent that its aro­ma could be de­tect­ed sev­er­al feet away as the com­peti­tors bat­tled through the heat.

At the end of their re­spec­tive chal­lenges, Job and Burke each walked away with $500 for their ef­forts.

But the com­pe­ti­tion was about more than adults try­ing to see who could eat the most dou­bles.

A chil­dren’s com­pe­ti­tion and a dou­bles re­lay were al­so staged, adding to the fes­tive at­mos­phere and en­sur­ing that the younger gen­er­a­tion was part of the cel­e­bra­tion.

For Can­dice Adams, Group Mar­ket­ing and Sales Man­ag­er of So­lis, which is part of Bayshore Fi­nance, the event was about build­ing re­la­tion­ships through some­thing unique­ly Trinida­di­an.

Adams said the com­pe­ti­tion was de­signed to con­nect So­lis with its com­mu­ni­ty, cus­tomers, part­ners and mem­bers of the wider pub­lic.

And few things, she sug­gest­ed, could bring peo­ple to­geth­er quite like dou­bles.

The event al­so high­light­ed the eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial of lo­cal cui­sine.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Neil Go­sine said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­dige­nous foods had con­sid­er­able po­ten­tial to con­tribute to the coun­try’s tourism in­dus­try.

He point­ed to dou­bles ven­dors as en­tre­pre­neurs who con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the lo­cal econ­o­my while help­ing to pre­serve and pro­mote the coun­try’s culi­nary cul­ture.

Go­sine said lo­cal cui­sine could play an im­por­tant role in strength­en­ing tourism, par­tic­u­lar­ly through foods such as dou­bles, bake and shark, and pelau.

The event al­so demon­strat­ed the scale of de­mand for dou­bles.

Sauce Dou­bles of Ch­agua­nas sup­plied more than 1,000 dou­bles for the com­pe­ti­tion and dis­trib­uted them free of charge to spec­ta­tors.

By the end of the event, the dou­bles had done what they have been do­ing for gen­er­a­tions - bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er.