“One ceremony in the saraka was the sprinkling of plain and ‘sweet water’ and rum…This and the plate of unsalted food…represented offerings to the ancestral spirits. Food consisted of goat meat, sweetbread, chilibibi, ground black-eyed peas, unsalted and fried in balls to make akara, black-eyed peas boiled soft with oil and pepper, cornmeal and cassava kuku, breadfruit and banana fufu.”
– Maureen Warner-Lewis, Guinea’s Other Suns
THE LEGACY and history of African-influenced food in Trinidad and Tobago is complicated and painful. Africans were forced to endure the cruel system of enslavement, which, among other ills, legally classified them as property.
On plantations across the Caribbean, southern America and other places, they learned how to transform leftovers and rejected cuts of meat into culinary wonders that we still enjoy.
Unfortunately, we have yet to give African food the acknowledgement and respect it deserves. For instance, at major events with a wide variety of dishes, patrons are treated to foods that are clearly defined by their cultural origins. In stark contrast, African foods are often given vague, generic explanations like “Trini cuisine” or, worse, “Creole food.”
This type of cultural erasure is typical of our ongoing colonial trauma. We proudly declare that a typical Sunday meal for us comprises foods like coo-coo, callaloo, pelau and some type of stewed meat, but we do not teach our children about the African origins of these foods. These include our love of “cook-up” rice, very similar to the Nigerian one-pot jollof rice dish. Certainly, it is rare for recipes to use the word “African” in the description.
Knowledge of herbs and plants helped Africans to be more resilient. Several years ago I had the privilege of visiting a garden in Louisiana that highlighted foods eaten by runaways. The garden was part of a small museum displaying tools, artifacts and documents preserved from that time.
The stories about the special herbs and plants were similar to the ones I grew up with. This bush for a painful insect bite, that one to clean out the body or another special one for “belly” pain. As we listened to the short talk, I remember thinking how important such in-depth research would be for us here at home.
Resistance through food was fundamental to their survival. Young people must be taught that the emancipation of Africans came about in large part to a sustained campaign of resistance that included food. In Trinidad there were maroon communities in places like Paramin, Tamana and Santa Cruz. Marronage, or the practice of enslaved people running away to set up communities outside the plantations, was common. Remembering their ancient food traditions and practices from Africa would have been key to restarting their lives as free people.
I always admired the way enslaved Africans addressed discrimination through food. “The white planters would get the best cuts, while enslaved workers were given the leftovers for their rations – feet, heads, ribs, fatback and offal.” Chicken-foot
