When an ice cream vendor at the World’s Fair in St Louis, Missouri, USA, in 1904 ran out of paper cups, he was next to a waffle vendor who rolled the waffles into cones to hold the ice cream and this was where the ice-cream cone was created.
In 1762 John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich was playing cards and did not want to leave the gaming table to eat. He asked for a serving of roast beef to be placed between two slices of bread so he could eat with his hands and continue gambling; it was here the sandwich was born.
The evolution of the American dish chicken and waffles is now in T&T. The ChickCone is a crunchy waffle cone stuffed with mouth-watering popcorn chicken and tossed in a delicious sauce of your choice, and it eliminates the need for forks and knives.
Hyacinth Bovell, a Trinidadian-American residing in Atlanta, USA, said she enjoyed the one-of-a-kind ChickCone at her best friend's birthday party in Diamond Vale, Diego Martin, earlier this year. She said the ChickCone which came from Ziska Goodridge-Taylor was delicious and not like anything she ever tasted.
Goodridge-Taylor, who was asked how she came up with the creation, said "Three years ago my daughter Shannon was on Instagram, she showed me a photo of a chicken cone, a waffle cone stuffed with popcorn chicken. I found it to be very interesting. I did some research online and found the company, Chick'nCone from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania and their chicken and waffle cone.
"They had a branch in New York where we live. My daughter and I are Trini-born and also US residents and we have to travel out of the country every year so we don't overstay.
"We went to the outlet to see what they were doing, we tried all their flavours and compared it to ours. One of the things we decided to do differently that no other company abroad has done was fine-tune and tweak the ChickCone to the T&T palate; ours has a bed of lettuce and garnished with scallions and a variety of sauces and toppings."
Goodridge-Taylor, who is also the events and wedding planner of Neale & Taylor Wedding & Events, said when she and her daughter returned to Trinidad and introduced the dish to their colleagues in their respective workplaces it went down well with them.
Goodridge-Taylor said at several festivals in the country like Lopinot, South, Dessertland events the meal was a hit with patrons. She said a friend even asked them to be part of the food service for the T&T Registered Nurses Association's Nurses All-Inclusive Fete in 2017 and 2019. They were told that their product was the crowd favourite with long lines of people waiting for their dish and they wanted them back for this year.
Goodridge-Taylor said they spend their time in the US doing research and have since expanded their product range to include Bar-B-Que, Ranch, Cheese and Maple Cinnamon ChickCones.
She is now doing all things waffle at her home in La Horquetta–from waffle pops, waffle pizzas, health-conscious waffles, bubble waffles with different flavours to waffle skewers. The kids are also not left out as she does drinks such as Cookie Monster, Unicorn, Caramel Crunchy and Candy Crush.
Goodridge-Taylor also offers an Edible Entertainment Boutique which allows clients to customise their very own waffle, design and have their guests join in the fun.
She said before the COVID-19 lockdown, they planned to offer a Paying It Forward With Waffles Programme to primary schools in T&T free of charge teaching kids about washing hands and other health and safety measures. However, this plan is now on hold due to public health restrictions in place.