An Embarrassment of Mangoes (24 page)

I spot the ad in the Friday-morning paper: “Friday Afterwork Stress Cooler” at the panyard of the Amoco Renegades, one of the country’s top-ranked steel bands. Denyse Plummer, last year’s Calypso Queen, is making a guest appearance. And the mas band associated with the Renegades will be launching its Carnival theme. Though Carnival is the ultimate Trini party, the celebrations start months ahead with big limes, some of them at panyards, the outdoor spaces where the pan bands practice. The mas bands present their new Carnival costume designs and sign up participants, the pan bands play, and everyone drinks and dances. Late fall is also the time for
parang
, the Spanish-based Christmas music that originated in Venezuela and features tiny four-string guitars called
cuatros
, which give it a distinctive sweet tinkling sound. Parang has been wholly adopted by the Trinis; there’s even a subgenre with a dance beat known as soca parang. Along with the live pan, live calypso, and live soca, the Friday lime at the Renegades panyard will feature live parang.

“We
have
to go,” Steve says immediately when I casually point out the ad. “You know how much work stress we’ve been under lately.”

“But it says strictly by invitation.”

“Well, you’ve got until this afternoon to figure out how to get us two.”

Steve and I stand out at local limes. We don’t look like locals—despite our deep tans, and despite wearing jeans as the Trinis do (in the 100-degree heat), in an attempt to blend in. I think we’ll be unusual enough that we can talk our way into the panyard—but I don’t want to risk having to deal with Steve’s disappointment. Just in case, I make a call to the distillery that makes White Magic rum, which appears to be an event sponsor. “No problem,” the guy I finally reach tells me. “Jus’ come.”

We arrive two hours after the starting time—“jus’ now” is a Trini concept too—and the live music is jus’ beginning. Of course no one asks to see an invitation. People are getting their stress cooled pretty quickly at the tables along one side of the panyard, where various exotic mixed drinks made with White Magic rum are being offered. I hand over $2 TT, which is the princely sum of 33 cents, and the woman behind the table ladles out a large cup of Moka Magic. It consists of iced coffee, cocoa, and condensed milk, blended with a killer quantity of high-test rum. One is enough to put a small-sized human on her ear.

White Magic clearly has the edge. At the next booth, Carib is $7 TT a bottle. “White Magic posssaaaaaaay,” comes the shout from the stage, and the crowd cheers wildly for the sponsor. A “possaaaaaaay”—posse—is a group of supporters. We’d become accustomed to the calls for various “possaaaaaaays” in Grenada, where emcees would goad the crowd by calling for people from each of the island’s parishes. Once the local possibilities were exhausted, they moved on to other islands. One night, during a Carnival performance, there was even a call for “Toronto possaaaaaaay.” Just about the only voice, I screamed myself silly, while my Grenadian neighbors—and Steve—looked on with much amusement.

We’d arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 10—that’s when the ad said the event was over—but at 10 the Amoco Renegades are just getting ready to play. We send the taxi away.

A full-sized pan band, one hundred pannists playing their hearts out, is like no other sound in the world. A “divine frenzy,” someone called it. “Righteous thunder.” It’s a sound that gets inside you, goes right to your core, so your heart beats to the rhythm and, no matter what, you can’t keep yourself still.

We’ve heard full pan orchestras in competitions, both here and in Grenada. Competitions require a certain formality, and we sat in a grandstand, with the acre of pan players a distance from us on the stadium field below. Tonight, the Renegades are playing for their friends—in the midst of them, in fact, since the band has set up on the ground, not on the outdoor stage, as the other acts had. They are into the music, in a way that gives new meaning to that pat phrase. As we stand not six feet from the tenor pans, the sound reaches out and grabs us, takes us under its control, and demands that we participate in the divine frenzy.

When we finally leave, in the wee hours, the Renegades are still playing. We go home on another high.

Y
ou can’t lime without getting hungry. And the food here—like the politics, the music, and the rest of the culture—strongly reflects Trinidad’s blend of East Indian and West Indian. Columbus sighted the island in 1498, claimed it for Spain, and named it to honor the blessed Trinity. Spain kept control for three centuries—until it was seized by the British, who essentially kept it in one form or another until it gained independence in 1962. During their reign, the British needed cheap labor to work the plantations after emancipation; indentured servants from India filled the bill and flooded into the country. Today, 40 percent of the population traces its roots to Africa and 40 percent to India. West Indian cooking meets East Indian cuisine, and vice versa.

Pelau
or
pilau
, a popular Trinidadian main dish made with shrimp, goat, beef, or chicken, is a Creolized East Indian pilaf; roti is an East Indian flatbread wrapped around West Indian fillings—and Trinis maintain they first did the wrapping. Channa—the East Indian word for chickpeas—are ubiquitous: They’re served roasted with hot West Indian peppers and shadow benny to be munched, like peanuts, by the handful; and they’re made into a West Indian–style curry. “Doubles” are one of the most popular Trini snacks: two pieces of roti-like bread with curried channa, hot pepper sauce, and kuchela, a spicy East Indian mango relish, sandwiched in between. They’re sold from stalls at the market, vendors on the street, and, we’ve discovered, during intermission at concerts. When performances start late and go later, everyone is ravenous by intermission. Steve always goes for the doubles, but I search out the guys with the oil drum of hot corn soup, thick with dumplings and chunks of corn on the cob. Swirl in some shadow benny sauce—like a cilantro pesto—and shake in some fiery hot pepper, and you’ve got the perfect late-night food.

Roti vans prowl the streets of Port of Spain, the local equivalent of the chip truck or the hot-dog cart. Often here, the dinner plate–sized breads have
dhal puri
, East Indian spicy mashed split peas, rolled into them. Up and down the island chain the rotis are different: The filling can be dry or drippy; the bread can be slightly thick or very thin, flecked with dark toasted patches from the griddle or an all-over tan; some have chickpeas, some have more potatoes than meat. But if the filling of a true island roti is chicken or goat, you can be pretty well assured of one thing: It’s going to have bones.

“
Lot
of bones,” Basil had said dubiously the first time Steve ordered the goat roti at Pyramid, a tiny storefront restaurant in St. George’s. Just up the hill from the Marketing Board, Pyramid had no printed menu, just a scrawled sign in the window that listed what was available that day. It became Steve’s favorite lunchtime haunt, and after the first one or two visits, Basil, the bearded owner (as well as the only server, and the bartender), had an icy Carib sliding across the table at him before he had even dropped his backpack on a seat. “I
like
the bones,” Steve said, and Basil broke into a smile. “Dey add flavor, but some people don’t like ’em.” He clearly means tourists. We discover, in fact, that restaurants frequented by tourists offer two types of chicken roti: a more expensive, boneless one, for the tourists, and one with bones, for the locals. I make a point of ordering the one with bones.

Perhaps Trinidad’s most famous snack food, however, is the shark-and-bake, also called the bake-and-shark. Although you can get them all over the island, the kingdom of the shark-and-bake is Maracas Beach on the north coast. I am determined to make a pilgrimage.

I like my beaches wild—empty, lonely, and strewn with shells instead of people—which Maracas, Trinidad’s most popular beach, is not. But, oh, the shark-and-bake. Every local has his or her favorite among the vendors that line the mile-long beach, but “Richard’s deh best,” said the person we consulted, and so Richard’s is the stall we’re standing in front of. Pieces of flour-dusted shark sizzle in hot oil, and flat disks of dough, the “bakes,” turn into golden, deep-fried puffs. The man behind the counter scoops them out, lets them drain for just a second, slits them open, and stuffs in the shark. We’re then on our own to dress the sandwiches from the array of sauces and salads nearby: hot pepper sauce, garlic sauce, shadow benny sauce, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, chutney. The result is a gourmet-heaven filet-o-fish, the shark fresh and flaky when I bite in, the hot pepper and shadow benny sauces adding bite and a cool vinegary herb freshness, everything neatly (and sinfully) contained in the pocket of the bake.

Bakes are a mystery to me, their name belying their fried deliciousness; these bakes have been nowhere near an oven. “Those are really floats,” I’m told, when I finally decide to inquire. “Because they float in the hot oil when they’re deep-fried. So what you had was really a shark-and-float.”

But no other bake I encounter is baked either, though some—like the ones Dingis makes—are shallow-fried. She’s more semantically accurate about them, too: She cooks them in a skillet in a “tip of lard”—and calls them “fried bakes.”

I’m assured they
are
sometimes baked, but you sure couldn’t prove it by me: Every time I ask for a bake, I get something fried. Maybe there’s something in my look that says to vendors up and down the island chain, “this woman loves crunchy, greasy, artery-clogging, straight-from-the-sizzling-oil food.” And they’d be right.

Port of Spain “Stress Cooler”

This is my interpretation of the Moka Magic served at the Afterwork Stress Cooler (a.k.a. big outdoor party with live music and lots to drink). The original recipe came from the Caroni Distillery, the maker of White Magic rum.

6 ounces white rum

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

11⁄2 teaspoons cocoa powder

1 ounce golden syrup or corn syrup

6 ounces evaporated milk

1–2 ounces sweetened condensed milk (approx.)

Freshly grated nutmeg

1. Combine a couple of tablespoons of the rum with the espresso and cocoa powders and stir until smooth.

2. Add the rest of the rum, the syrup, and the evaporated milk. Sweeten to taste with condensed milk.

3. Serve over crushed ice, with freshly grated nutmeg on top.

Makes 3 drinks

Chicken Pelau

This Trinidadian version of rice pilaf is a popular one-pot dinner on
Receta
, accompanied by kuchela—a spicy green-mango relish sold in jars—or mango chutney, and a salad. The crispy layer that forms on the bottom of the pot is called “bun-bun,” and some people think it’s the best part.

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme

1⁄4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

3 cloves garlic

4 pounds bone-in chicken pieces

3–4 tablespoons oil

1 onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1⁄2–1 hot pepper, seeded and finely chopped (or to taste)

1⁄4 teaspoon turmeric

2 cups uncooked rice

3 cups chicken stock

3 fresh or canned tomatoes, chopped

1⁄4 cup roughly chopped roasted peanuts

1. Combine the thyme, allspice, black pepper, salt, and 1 clove of the garlic, finely chopped. Rub the chicken pieces with the mixture and refrigerate, covered, for a couple of hours or overnight.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a large pot. Fry the chicken pieces in batches, adding more oil as necessary, until they are golden brown on both sides. Remove from pot.

3. Finely chop the remaining garlic cloves and add to the pot with the onion, red pepper, and hot pepper. Cook until softened but not browned. Sprinkle with the turmeric and stir. Add the rice to the pan and stir until the grains are coated with the onion mixture.