Foodways historian Ramin Ganeshram explains how that came to be.
Sometimes the colors were so bright they hurt your eyes.
Their story is similar to my family’s.
Tarique Eastman
At least three of my father’s grandparents traveled from Punjab, India, to Trinidad in the 1850s.
In the Caribbean, my Indian ancestors took over where slavery left off.
My great-grandparents' immigration was a forced one, the details of which are murky.
Tarique Eastman
Poverty, starvation, oppression and deception all surely played a part.
Once they arrived in Trinidad, they suffered the brutality of the plantation system.
India remained a distant memory kept alive by the foods they eked out despite desperate poverty.
Tarique Eastman
Curry became a stand-in for Indianness at large.
Today, nearly half of the population on the island claims Indian roots.
In both its people and its cuisine, Trinidad is an organic fusion.
Tarique Eastman
For most Trinidadians, Indian culture is simply part and parcel of the nation.
Although largely AfroCaribbean, she recognizes TrinidadIndian food as core to the national identity.
“We never saw any distinction in our kitchen.
Tarique Eastman
It was never ‘East Indian’ food to us,” she says.
And so it is for me.
Where to Eat
Seek out the food truck that frequents Carlsen Field in Chase Village, Chaguanas.
Penny De Los Santos
For the nation’s most popular snack, head to Araby Ali’s Doubles in Barataria.
The Alis have been cooking them up since the 1930s.
Krishna’s, in Debe, is known for its sweet treats.
Penny De Los Santos
RAMIN GANESHRAMis a Trinidadian American culinary historian and author ofSweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago.
Tarique Eastman
