It’s a known fact that food com­forts the soul, and noth­ing is more heart­warm­ing than eat­ing fresh­ly cooked food from the coun­try of my birth—T&T. Liv­ing in a for­eign coun­try makes it more dif­fi­cult to get the lo­cal herbs, sea­son­ings and es­sen­tial in­gre­di­ents that are typ­i­cal­ly used in Trin­bag­on­ian cui­sine.

Al­though I live in New York City, Sat­ur­day is still a day for the tra­di­tion­al one-pot meals that I grew up eat­ing—a ful­ly loaded chick­en soup with pro­vi­sions, dumplings and sea­son­ings or a nice, hearty pot of chick­en pelau. For­tu­nate­ly, I live in a mul­ti-eth­nic city so lo­cal in­gre­di­ents are easy to find.

Lib­er­ty Av­enue is my go-to stop for all my Caribbean in­gre­di­ents and es­sen­tials to cook tra­di­tion­al Trin­bag­on­ian food. It of­fers me a sim­i­lar vibe to that of Ch­agua­nas Main Road, so I feel right at home. I get hot pep­pers, pi­men­tos, ban­da­nia/chan­don beni (the Span­ish stores have it as “re­cao” and “cu­lantro,” the Chi­nese call it “ngo gai” and the Thai call it “saw­tooth co­rian­der.”) I al­so get dasheen bush (bha­gi), bread­fruit, chataigne (bread­nut), and al­most all the in­gre­di­ents need­ed for tra­di­tion­al dish­es. Once, I went in­to an Asian store and asked a work­er if they had “cara­poulay” leaves and “fever grass” and the guy looked to­tal­ly per­plexed. Luck­i­ly, I knew the oth­er names for it—cur­ry leaves and lemon­grass, so he was able to help me out. It is al­ways great to learn all the names so that it is eas­i­er to find a sea­son­ing or in­gre­di­ent. In some cas­es, if in­gre­di­ents are not avail­able, there are var­i­ous sub­sti­tu­tions that can be used in place.

TIP #1

My first tip for find­ing lo­cal in­gre­di­ents is to seek out the eth­nic, Caribbean, Latin Amer­i­can, or Asian gro­cery or mar­ket in your city. Stay con­nect­ed to oth­er Trin­bag­o­ni­ans around the world via so­cial me­dia and join food groups so you can in­ter­act with oth­er Trin­bag­o­ni­ans who live in your city.

TIP #2

Sec­ond­ly, make Google your best friend. There are many on­line stores that sell lo­cal in­gre­di­ents. If you are for­tu­nate to be able to plant trees where you live, then buy the plants or seeds on­line or from your lo­cal nurs­ery, and make your own Tri­ni gar­den.

TIP #3

For my third and last tip, I sug­gest mov­ing to a mul­ti­cul­tur­al place that of­fers a va­ri­ety of in­gre­di­ents. I know it’s not re­al­ly a “tip”, but it is the most con­ve­nient way. If you have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­trol where you live, that’s your best bet. The abil­i­ty to find Trin­bag­on­ian in­gre­di­ents or to be able to grow my own in­gre­di­ents will de­ter­mine in which city I choose to live in the fu­ture (if I de­cide to move out of New York).

Food is the con­nec­tion to my cul­ture and fam­i­ly and it is every­thing that I am. It is my right to pre­serve it for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. No mat­ter where I roam, T&T will al­ways be my home.

“Food is our com­mon ground, a uni­ver­sal ex­pe­ri­ence.”- James Beard

by

Resh­mi Ram­per­sad

Taste of Tri­ni, @tas­te­oftrin­ba­go