Fay­ola Fras­er

Callaloo, ground pro­vi­sions, pelau, stewed chick­en… all can be found on a plate at Sun­day lunch, a core house­hold tra­di­tion across T&T. Syn­ony­mous with Tri­ni cul­ture, “Sun­day Lunch” has be­come a culi­nary tra­di­tion in its own right, en­joyed by Trinida­di­ans at home and nos­tal­gi­cal­ly recre­at­ed or yearned for through­out the di­as­po­ra.

But what do these dish­es that grace the ta­ble for a Tri­ni “Sun­day Lunch” have in com­mon? At their core lies a rich African culi­nary lega­cy. What we now know as “Cre­ole” cui­sine is deeply root­ed in the foods, cook­ing tech­niques, and tra­di­tions brought to these shores by en­slaved Africans cen­turies ago. No­tably, many beloved Tri­ni sta­ples are al­so a re­sult of the “scraps” or the mea­gre pro­vi­sions giv­en to the for­mer­ly en­slaved, who har­nessed cre­ativ­i­ty in the face of scarci­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Mau­reen Warn­er-Lewis, in a lec­ture, “African Her­itage in the Caribbean”, in 2007, “the her­itage of foods - yam, dasheen, ed­does, ba­nanas, plan­tains - all have a ba­sis in African cul­ture.” She cit­ed that these com­mon foods, along with the lo­cal­ly recre­at­ed and re­named dish­es such as coocoo, ac­cra, and payme that have found their place in Caribbean cui­sine, are in­deed our “African in­her­i­tance”.

One of the most glar­ing ex­am­ples of Trinida­di­an adap­ta­tion of West African foods is callaloo, an iron-rich ac­cou­trement which, when spread even­ly over rice and ac­com­pa­nied by a stewed meat, can tan­ta­lise even the most scep­ti­cal taste­buds. The dish it­self is not a di­rect trans­plant, as the en­slaved Africans brought the tra­di­tion of cook­ing hearty leafy-green stews and adapt­ed them based on what was avail­able on the plan­ta­tion. Dasheen bush, an abun­dant lo­cal green, be­came the foun­da­tion of the dish, while ochro (okra) - a veg­etable of African ori­gin in­tro­duced dur­ing the transat­lantic slave trade - added its char­ac­ter­is­tic tex­ture and thick­en­ing qual­i­ties. Co­conut milk re­placed the palm oil com­mon­ly used in West African cook­ing, im­part­ing a rich, creamy flavour while demon­strat­ing how African culi­nary tra­di­tions evolved to suit the in­gre­di­ents of a new en­vi­ron­ment.

Cre­ole cui­sine is al­so a pow­er­ful re­minder of, and tes­ta­ment to, the re­silience and in­ge­nu­ity of the en­slaved Africans in Trinidad and To­ba­go. While many of the foods, cook­ing meth­ods, and culi­nary tra­di­tions they brought with them con­tin­ue to shape our lo­cal cui­sine, some of our most beloved dish­es al­so emerged from their re­mark­able abil­i­ty to trans­form hard­ship in­to nour­ish­ment.

This means that many of the del­i­ca­cies we en­joy to­day were born from ne­ces­si­ty. Salt­ed cod, for ex­am­ple, was in­tro­duced to Trinidad and To­ba­go as an in­ex­pen­sive, pre­served food that could with­stand the trop­i­cal cli­mate and the long transat­lantic voy­age. It pro­vid­ed a prac­ti­cal means of feed­ing a large en­slaved labour force on plan­ta­tions. Al­though it be­gan as a food syn­ony­mous with op­pres­sion, salt­ed cod was reimag­ined by en­slaved Africans, who drew up­on their rich culi­nary her­itage to trans­form it in­to some­thing both flavour­ful and nour­ish­ing. By in­cor­po­rat­ing lo­cal herbs, veg­eta­bles, pep­pers, and sea­son­ings, they el­e­vat­ed a ba­sic sta­ple in­to a defin­ing in­gre­di­ent of Cre­ole cui­sine. To­day, salt­ed cod re­mains at the heart of many cher­ished dish­es, in­clud­ing ac­cra, buljol, and a va­ri­ety of rice dish­es, serv­ing as a last­ing re­minder of the cre­ativ­i­ty, re­silience, and en­dur­ing cul­tur­al lega­cy of our an­ces­tors.

Wide­ly re­gard­ed as a na­tion­al dish, pelau traces its ori­gins to the one-pot rice dish­es of West Africa, where meals such as jollof rice and be­nachin have long com­bined rice, meat, veg­eta­bles, and aro­mat­ic spices in a sin­gle pot.

The defin­ing step of “burn­ing” sug­ar to cre­ate a rich caramelised base re­flects Caribbean in­no­va­tion, while in­gre­di­ents such as peas, co­conut milk, fresh herbs, and sea­son­al veg­eta­bles trans­formed a sim­ple rice dish in­to a deeply sat­is­fy­ing meal. More than just a com­fort food, pelau em­bod­ies the re­silience, cre­ativ­i­ty, and adapt­abil­i­ty of African de­scen­dants who pre­served their culi­nary her­itage while forg­ing new tra­di­tions un­der ex­tra­or­di­nary cir­cum­stances.

De­spite the wealth of African foods and African food tra­di­tions, one would en­counter dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing an African food es­tab­lish­ment in T&T. Suya Pit, found­ed by Ade­bowale Abra­ham Opadeyi, lo­cat­ed at Ed­die Hart Grounds, has filled that dearth of African dish­es by of­fer­ing West African meals such as jollof rice, roast plan­tain, and suya meats. Opadeyi hails the in­flu­ence of African dish­es in T&T, say­ing that “the African in­flu­ence is so ob­vi­ous. I be­lieve that the lo­cal food is on­ly some­what dif­fer­ent be­cause the Africans at the time sub­sti­tut­ed in­gre­di­ents ac­cord­ing to what was avail­able to them.”

For Opadeyi, the mis­sion is not just about food. He un­der­scores that it is a ve­hi­cle for cul­tur­al con­nec­tion and a way to re­shape per­cep­tions of African cul­ture. “The val­ue of a na­tion can be felt on its streets,” he says, ex­plain­ing that he was “mo­ti­vat­ed to start be­cause I want­ed to change the nar­ra­tive about Africans in T&T by giv­ing peo­ple an­oth­er as­pect of Africa, and show the ori­gin and sim­i­lar­i­ties of the food. I want peo­ple to taste the good­ness in our food and talk about it with friends and fam­i­ly.”

As T&T com­mem­o­rates Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, our food of­fers one of the most tan­gi­ble ways to ho­n­our the en­dur­ing lega­cy of our African an­ces­tors. Every plate of pelau, bowl of callaloo, serv­ing of buljol, or bite of ac­cra tells a sto­ry of sur­vival, re­silience, and re­mark­able in­ge­nu­ity. These dish­es are more than a Sun­day lunch; they are en­dur­ing ex­pres­sions of a peo­ple who pre­served their iden­ti­ty, adapt­ed their tra­di­tions, and found in­no­va­tion dur­ing hard­ship. In cel­e­brat­ing the flavours that have been passed down through gen­er­a­tions, we al­so cel­e­brate the strength, cre­ativ­i­ty, and cul­tur­al con­tri­bu­tions of those who laid the foun­da­tion for our rich iden­ti­ty. This Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, may every shared meal serve as both a trib­ute to the lega­cy of the for­mer­ly en­slaved Africans and a re­minder that our his­to­ry lives on not on­ly in our mem­o­ries, but al­so in the food that brings us to­geth­er.