The aro­mas of roast­ed spices, fire­wood smoke and siz­zling oil filled the air yes­ter­day, as the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) opened its three-day Food Fair and Ar­ti­san Mar­ket at the Di­vali Na­gar site in Ch­agua­nas.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal, who al­so serves as the NCIC’s pres­i­dent, of­fi­cial­ly de­clared the event open and spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about the pow­er of cui­sine to tran­scend cul­tur­al bound­aries.

“Cui­sine has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er to ex­pe­ri­ence each oth­er’s spe­cif­ic dish­es and share each oth­er’s tal­ents,” he told Guardia Me­dia yes­ter­day as the coun­try ob­served the In­di­an Ar­rival Day hol­i­day. 

Teemal de­scribed In­di­an cui­sine as a uni­fy­ing force in T&T bring­ing to­geth­er peo­ple of var­i­ous back­grounds in ap­pre­ci­a­tion of flavour, tra­di­tion and culi­nary artistry. He em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of pre­serv­ing tra­di­tion­al cook­ing meth­ods and recipes, many of which are slow­ly dis­ap­pear­ing in mod­ern times.

“Younger gen­er­a­tions may not have had the chance to ex­pe­ri­ence this kind of at­mos­phere,” Teemal said. “These food fairs are about more than food—they’re about her­itage. In the years ahead, we plan to rein­tro­duce some of the dish­es that have fad­ed from pop­u­lar­i­ty.”

In a ded­i­cat­ed open-air kitchen, the clat­ter of uten­sils and crack­le of fire­wood echoed the rhythms of an­oth­er era. Dish­es were pre­pared us­ing tra­di­tion­al choola—clay stoves fu­elled by fire­wood—lend­ing a smoky, earthy depth to every bite.

Among the many vis­i­tors to the site were Ku­mara­sain and Jag­ger­nauth, who had ar­rived from In­dia that morn­ing and wast­ed no time sam­pling the tra­di­tion­al dish­es on of­fer.

Mean­while, the Ras­goli Gar Kitchen was a hive of ac­tiv­i­ty. An­jie Sheo­mam­ber, dubbed the Roti La­dy” en­dured the in­tense heat and swirling smoke as she ex­pert­ly turned out one soft, warm sa­da roti af­ter an­oth­er, de­light­ing hun­gry pa­trons.

Near­by, Camil­la Ga­jad­har im­pressed on­look­ers as she crushed fresh­ly roast­ed baigan (egg­plant) to pre­pare the ever-pop­u­lar baigan cho­ka.