Trinidad Carnival offers many new experiences, sights and sounds. But you will add new culinary adventures to the list – Trinidad Carnival street food. I rarely recommend consuming street food in other countries. But during Trinidad Carnival you will at some time be in position where there is nothing else available but street food.
The three most popular items on the menu are bake & shark, doubles and corn soup.
Bake & Shark
Bake is made from circular fried dough about the size of your palm. It’s cut open like a sandwich and filled with breaded, fried shark. At many of the fetes you attend, you’ll see a group of cooks plopping the dough in the hot oil right next to a few who are fishing the shark out of the hot oil. You’ll then be served this amazing sandwich and urged to complement it with a variety of delicious condiments. A must have is the hot sauce. No need to worry about all the fried oil you will consume, Trinidad Carnival partying is the best workout.
Doubles
I always seem to end every fete with doubles, no matter how hard I try. In addition to being a fete favourite, you’ll find doubles vendors on the street at breakfast and lunch. Doubles is a gift from our Indian Trinidadians. It’s a sandwich made of two circular pieces of fried bread, called bara. The sandwich is filled (rather overfilled) with curried chickpeas or as the locals say ‘channa’. When your flight arrives in Trinidad, look for the doubles vendor just outside the airport and sample it before you get to the city.
Corn Soup
If your stomach is saying no more fried foods, then corn soup will be a welcomed addition to the menu. It’s a thick soup with a split pea base and filled with bite-size pieces of corn on the cob, dumplings and yummy herbs. I know it’s hard to imagine having hot soup on a hot day, but it must be tried. And yes, feel free to use your fingers to grab the bits of corn on the cob in the soup. It’s both the soup that eats like a meal and finger licking good.
You can add my other favourite, roti, to the list. Roti is a crepe like dough filled with many curried favourites. It is more frequently found in roti shops, but in the evening there are street vendors in popular spots.
You’ll find bake & shark, doubles and corn soup around the Savannah and other hot spots like St. James. Also, your jouvert band will probably offer doubles and corn soup for breakfast.
Many of the all inclusive fetes will feature foods not just from Trinidad and Tobago, but from every corner of the world. So you can go local and global. Either way, your Trinidad Carnival weary body will love your Trinidad Carnival enriched tummy!
Enjoy!
