Trinidad and Tobago cuisine
Trinidad and Tobago cuisine is influenced by Indian-South Asian, West African, Creole, European, North American, Chinese, Amerindian, Latin American, and Levantine culinary styles.
Main meals
Breakfast dishes
Popular breakfast foods include doubles, made with two baras and curried channa. They are usually served with toppings such as pepper sauce, kuchela, tamarind, mango, pommecythere, cucumber, and bandhaniya chutneys. Doubles are one of the most popular breakfast foods eaten on the islands, but are commonly consumed throughout the day.A traditional Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian breakfast consists of sada roti, a type of unleavened bread made with flour, baking powder and water. The dough is rolled out and cooked on flat, cast-iron skillet called a tawa. The cooked dough is cut into quarters and served with a variety of fried vegetables, tarkaris or chokhas. Sada rotis are usually eaten with baigan chokha, damadol chokha and pepper chokha.
Other common dishes include aloo chokha, karaili chokha and murtani or upar ghar ; fried or curried bodi, aloo, ochro or bhindhi, seim ; fried or curried karaili, saijan and lauki, pumpkin or kohra ''tarkari ; and bhaji, and fried plantains.
Fried bake is usually served with fried shark, saltfish, buljol'', sardines, herring, bacon, fried plantain, brown stew chicken, or corned beef with onions and tomatoes.
Coconut bake is usually served with fried accra, buljol, black pudding, butter, cheese paste or stewed meat, like chicken.
Bake and shark is a popular breakfast dish at local beaches, like Maracas Beach and Store Bay, especially on the weekend.
Other breakfast foods include tannia cakes, and boiled cassava with butter.
Common hot drinks consumed for breakfast include cocoa tea made from homemade cocoa balls, cornmeal porridge and farine.
Lunch and dinner
A nationally well-known dish with African roots is callaloo, a side dish made of young dasheen or taro leaves, okra, crab or pigtails, pumpkin, onions, coconut milk, pimento, and green seasoning like chives, cilantro and culantro. Callaloo is often served with cornmeal coo coo, plantain, cassava, sweet potatoes, dumplings, rice, and curried crab. However, Trinidad callaloo is not prepared or served the same as Jamaican callaloo.Pelau is a well-known rice-based dish in Trinidad and Tobago typically prepared as a one-pot meal by caramelising sugar and browning meat before simmering rice, pigeon peas, and coconut milk together. Other frequently served rice-based meals include dhal and rice, and rice and stewed chicken, pork, ox-tail, fish or lamb. Also common are breadfruit oil down and macaroni pie, consisting of pasta baked with eggs and cheese, and a variety of other potential ingredients. One of the best-known Trinidadian dishes is curried duck served with either roti or rice.
An array of fish and seafood can be bought at local merchants throughout Trinidad and Tobago, such as flying fish, king fish, carite, prawns and shrimp, sapatay, red fish, bonito, lobster, conch and crab, tilapia and seasonal cascadura.
Tobagonian food is dominated by a wide selection of seafood dishes, most notably curried crab and dumplings. Tobago is also known for dasheen, sweet potato, eddoe, cassava, yam, soups and stews, also known as "blue food" across the country. "Fish broth", a soup made in the style of bouillabaisse, is frequently served as a main or side dish.
Another local dish is the rare cascadura, a small freshwater fish. The fish is curried and served with lagoon rice and cassava and yams. There is a local legend in Trinidad that anyone who eats cascadu will return to Trinidad to end their days.
Condiments
Trinidadians accompany their meals with various condiments; these can include pepper sauces, chutneys and pickles and are often homemade.Pepper sauces are made by using Scotch bonnet or other hot peppers, either minced or chopped and other spices. It can sometimes include lime or lemon as well as other vegetables, and come in many variations and flavours. The murtanie is another popular condiment which is a coarsely chopped spicy medley of Scotch bonnet peppers, carrots, karaili and other spices.
Chutneys are frequently used as well and often include chaltar, mango, tamarind, cucumber, pommecythère, bandhaniya, dhaniya, tomato, and coconut. They are most commonly eaten with doubles, aloo pie, saheena, baiganee, kachori, and pholourie. There are a variety of commonly eaten pickles known locally as achar. Kuchela is a grated spicy version, usually made from mango but sometimes made from pommecythère. Other version of achars are made from mango, pommecythère, tamarind, amla, lemon, lime, and chulta.
Green seasoning is a very common cold sauce based on culantro or chadon beni, pureed with green onions, garlic, pimento, vinegar, and other herbs; it may be used as a table condiment or marinade.
Street foods
Popular freshly prepared street foods include:- Indo-Trinidadian and Tobagonian foods like doubles, aloo pie, pholourie, saheena, baiganee, bara, and kachori are popular street foods throughout the country.
- Another popular Indo-T&T street food is wrap roti,. It is served with fillings like curried vegetables, channa, aloo and chicken. Indian sweets are frequently served with curried fish, goat, shrimp, beef, duck, conchs, and soya, especially around Hindu holidays.
- Bake and shark is a fried dish. Which is topped with fresh fruit like pineapple; vegetables like cucumber and salad; and a variety of sauces and seasonings.
- Souse is made from pig, cow or chicken feet or cucumbers. This is seasoned with onion, garlic, salt, pimento, scotch bonnet peppers, lemon and chadon beni. Mostly served warm or slightly chilled, it is also rumoured to be a cure to hangovers.
Along with pows, fish, cheese and beef pies. Sausage rolls are also eaten as midday snacks and are available at stands usually found along the nation's streets.
When in season, roast and boiled corn on the cob can be found any time day or night.
On festive occasions, street foods also include wild meat such as deer, iguana, manicou, tatou, and agouti, to name a few. These are prepared either as a creole or curry dish, and served with a wide choice of local pepper sauces.
On hot days, locals enjoy ice cream, snow cones, ice pops, kulfi, freezies, sucker bag, coconut slushies, coconut water, and fresh coconut jelly.
Festival foods
Special Christmas foods include appetisers like pastelles, pholourie, saheena, baiganee, kachori, and chicken or pork pies. Entrees include garlic ham, baked ham, turkey or chicken, macaroni pie, fish pie and garlic roasted potatoes. As well as grilled or barbecued meats, corn, pigeon peas and Christmas rice. Also enjoyed are fried rice, chow mein, lo mein, roasted chinese chicken, curried meat and vegetables and roti. Desserts include fruitcake, blackcake (rum cake), sweet bread, cassava pone, coconut drops and sponge cake. Along with chocolate cake, dundee cake, raisin/currants roll, khurma, and gulab jamun. Drinks include coconut water, ginger beer, ponche crema, egg nog, cocoa tea, and sorrel.Traditional Diwali and other Hindu festivals and prayers foods include appetizers such as pholourie, saheena, baiganee, bara, and kachori. Main dishes include roti and karhi and rice served with condiments such as achar or anchar, kuchela, mother-in-law, pepper sauce, and dishes such as curried mango, bhaji, pumpkin or kohra tarkari, curry channa and aloo, fried or curried baigan, fried or curried bodi, fried or curried seim, curry eddoes, curry chataigne or katahar, and other tarkaries. Desserts include mohan bhog (parsad), lapsi and suhari, burfi, khurma, gulab jamun, pera, rasgulla, batasa, gujiya, gulgula, roat, kheer (sweet rice), laddu, and jalebi. It is traditionally served on a sohari leaf.
Special Eid, Hosay, and other Muslim festival foods include curry goat, curry channa and aloo, sawine, burfi, rasgulla, sirnee, maleeda, halwa, and baklawa.
Sweets
Popular local sweets include cassava or coconut pone, stewed guavas, sweetbread and paw paw balls. Common Indian sweets and desserts include kheer, sawiyan, khurma, gulab jamoon, laddu, jalebi, halwa, mohan bhog (parsad) and lapsi. Indian sweets like rasgula, gulgula, rasmalai, pera, modak, gujiya and burfi are also popular.Beverages
There are many popular beverages native to the twin island nation. As in local soft drinks, maltas, shandies, citrus juices and ginger beers.Along with sorrel and mauby juices, peanut, seamoss, barbadine, soursop, beetroot and papaya (paw paw) punches.
Carib and Stag beers are very popular local lager beers. There is also Carib Light and Carib Shandys, which come in a variety of flavours.
Coconut water can be found throughout the island. Rum was invented in the Caribbean, therefore Trinidad and Tobago boasts rum shops all over the island, serving local favourites such as ponche-de-crème, puncheon rum, and home-made wines from local fruits.
Homemade alcohol is popular also.
Bitters is also popular.
Pacro water is a seafood-based beverage made from boiling various chiton mollusks, such as chiton tuberculatus but also has other culinary uses, such as in broths for soup. The beverage has a reputation as an aphrodisiac, as well as having other therapeutic properties. Pacro water can sometimes be found at festivals or public celebrations.
Fruits
Fruits available in Trinidad include mangoes, breadfruit, sorrel, passion fruit, watermelon, sapodilla, pommerac, guavas, pommecythère, caimite, abiu, five fingers, cherries, avocado and pawpaw. Along with the chenette, pineapples, oranges, portugal, plums, bananas, barbadine, balatá, soursop, cashews, tamarind, ceres, pois doux, cocorite, gru-gru-beff, fat-pork, pears, and coconuts.Many fruits available in Trinidad and Tobago are commonly used in a savory and usually spicy delicacy broadly referred to as "chow". The main ingredients of chow are usually: the fruit of choice, culantro, pepper, salt and sometimes garlic and vinegar. Traditionally, the most popular fruits for chow have been mangoes, pommeracs, pommecythère, cucumbers, tomatoes, portugals, sour oranges, salted prunes, cherries, pineapples, green apples, pears, and plums. The fruits are "seasoned" by the rest of the base ingredients and larger fruits are usually cut up into bite-sized pieces.