Food of Trinidad - The Flag Tour

October 22, 2015

On a Member's Only tour today we had a chance to taste the below foods.  We've learned that on Jesse's tours more often than not, they involve food.  Awesome, right?!  Of course there is his world famous "Taste of Trini Tour" that is nothing but eating your way around the country for 12 straight hours.  FYI - the record for number of foods tasted on that tour stands at 99 foods....in one day...OMG!  We have yet to do that tour but have heard great reviews and plan to do that tour this year before we depart Trinidad.

Anyway, our tour today (now dubbed The Flag Tour) took us down south to the world famous Pitch Lake (made up of pitch), to the Temple in the Sea, the Karya Siddhi temple and finally to the Caroni Swamp to see the scarlet ibis.  All the while we were learning about the things we were seeing as we drove along;  about the history, culture, religion, politics and such that make up Trinidad.  This included food - snacks, lunch, more snakes and finally homemade pineapple chow (made right in the boat while we were in the swamp).  One word =Yum!  

One of many food booths at Doubles Corner

It all started when some of our group were feeling peckish in the morning so Jesse stopped at a place called Doubles Corner.  Now you know we love Trini doubles.  But instead, Jesse had us trying new things none of us had tried before.
  

1.  Saheena (Sahina) - layers of dasheen leaves rolled up and then sliced.  That is placed between two layers of chickpea crust and then the whole thing is fried.  There was mango sauce in there and peppa sauce if we wanted.  De-lish!  Alternative method of preparing Saheena.

Saheena

2.  Aloo pie - Aloo means potato in Hindi so this was cooked potato in a chutney sauce with Chadon Beni and peppa sauce.  This was served up in a golden fried bread.

Aloo pie

3.  Kachorie (Kachori) - split peas and channa (chickpeas) are soaked overnight and then ground up fine in a food processor, turning it into a dough similar to cornmeal.  Spices like garlic, salt and pepper are added as well.  Then it is shaped into small patties and fried up.  The accompanying sauce was a sweet Pommecythere chow - aka golden apple chow. 

4.  Barfi - was our take away goodie.  Condensed milk, powdered milk, ginger, and cardamon make a Trini type fudge with sprinkles on top for fun.  

Roti

5.  After the Pitch Lake, we all enjoyed roti's - chicken w/bones (more flavor) and veggie. 

Jesse making his pineapple chow

6.  Jesse's pineapple chow - pineapple, lime juice, garlic, salt and black pepper, Chadon Beni and finally a small bit of scotch bonnet peppa for heat.  

7.  We also enjoyed some Pholouri (pronounced po-lor-ree) - fried batter that is usually served with a chow, chutney or sauce.

It was all yummy, yummy but in the end we liked the Saheena and Jesse's pineapple chow the best.

Special Note - I found a terrific web site Simply Trini  Cooking.  I used it to help fill in the details I forgot on the foods we ate.  If you like food at all, take some time to cruise this web site.  It's very interesting.  I haven't had a chance to contact the web site cook/author but plan to soon.  Hopefully, I have given full credit with my links.  I didn't want to swipe pics without asking so please click the links to see the missing foods I didn't get pics of because I was too busy stuffing my face.