By Vidyaratha Kissoon
I see the sign – “Doubles $200” – on the cart at the busy corner of the road and I think never mind who is watching, I am going to stand and eat one and I don’t care how much mess I make on my mouth and hands and clothes. I am not really hungry, but food in my hand and mouth sometimes help to lift the spirits.
I like doubles. No, I love doubles, and on a few visits to Trinidad have eaten doubles for breakfast, lunch and dinner on some days. Doubles, for those who do not know, is a Trinidadian snack food. Channa curry, liquid, served with two flat round fried bara and different pickles. Doubles is also standing on the roadside and eating one while the vendor packs ‘to go’.
The cart is small. The man who is selling the doubles is dressed in white, including a white cap. The channa curry and the pepper and the tamarind and the mango achar and the cucumber are in a glass case. The bara is in a styrofoam box.
“I have to get a bigger cart… I coming out a week now. Sales good.”
Young man. He is selling to a young Cuban guy. I know in Trinidad there is a fascinating rhythm of the hands – paper, two bara, channa, small spoon with all of the condiments, roll and turn the paper… put in a paper bag, or pass on to customer with a serviette with appropriate breaks to collect money or make change. One woman who I used to buy from a lot—“put the money deh”—would watch as you took your change.
I wonder if the young Cuban had ever seen Doubles before, but I am too muddled to open conversation with him. The man who is selling is taking his time. Opening the glass case, closing it back again. Important to avoid flies getting in.
The bara are large, not so oily. Larger than the ones in Trinidad. He lays one bara on the paper and then puts the channa curry and the condiments, closes the glass case, opens the box, takes out the other bara to cover, and then wraps it. And stuffs into the small brown paper bag.
I have my two hundred dollars in my hand. The young Cuban guy sees the two hundred dollars and asks me, with two fingers… if it is two. I say “Si, dos cientos” and the guy smiles. He walks off with the paper bag, the napkin falls on the road but I am not feeling like calling out or so to let him know.
Bandaniya
The vendor is glad to chat. The doubles vendors I met in Trinidad either did not talk much, or talked as fast as their hands moved. He liked doubles, but he never learned to make in Trinidad. The bara and channa curry are his own recipe. The channa is rich, dry like how I would make at home… not like the long water where the channa swims a bit and I have a hard time with eating because the gravy runs down my chin.
We gaff about the bandaniya (chadon beni/culantro).
“Dat ting strong, I ain’t sure if Guyanese gun like it… and is a $100 fuh lil bit… I know I should put more in the cucumber… a man tell me he will bring a plant fuh me.”
I ask him if he did not put any in the channa curry. “Nah… I didn’t know you could put it in curry…”
Eating on the road
And so I stand up and eat on the road corner. The vendors says, “Man, this corner not nice to eat… people buying and taking away only.”
He stops, we chat, and then he resumes making the doubles for me. “In Trinidad, is only doubles and sahina and so for breakfast food… here we got egg ball, cassava ball, all kind of thing…”
He seemed uncertain about how doubles would go down.
“I was in the market… but constab [City Constabulary] tell me nicely that I can’t be there… they show me a spot… but the spot was dirty… I couldn’t sell there… I have to get a different cart to walk and sell… I get good business though… people coming up to by even when the city constab telling me to move…”
I wonder if my eating would help with customers. People are looking at him, looking at me and moving past.
“You could get a water from aunty over deh yuh know…, “ he said, pointing to the woman with the cool down cart. Something about how the man is doing referrals at the corner.
The one napkin was not enough to clean up the mess on my mouth and hands.
“I know, I should get lil water…”
While I am eating, a man, barefoot, dirty clothes, dirty skin… asks the doubles man for a plastic bag.
“You want a big one or small one…”
“A small one…”
The man with the dirty clothes seems to be keeping the area clean, putting rubbish in the plastic bag.
He comes to the cart, gives the vendor $80. “Gie me a half… put nuff cucumber.”
He moves away while doubles man prepares the half doubles.
“Every day he buy from me. He like de cucumber. “
Half a doubles is one bara, with the same channa curry, condiments etc. and wrapped up in the paper. Is not quite a ‘single.’
Tamarind
My belly feel full after the one doubles. The bara are not oily. I want another one. I ask for one… ”put more tamarind… to go.”
“Yeah, some girls just buy… they ask for nuff tamarind.”
I can’t remember tamarind sauce being among the doubles condiments in Trinidad. I remember coconut, golden apple curry or pickle, mango kuchela, bandaniya, cucumber, pepper.
I walk around the market and then buy turmeric juice to wash down the doubles. In Trini, it was Solo Apple J.
I keep looking for Trini doubles in Guyana, but they don’t taste the same. The woman who sells in New Amsterdam packs her own in a huge bara with the channa and achar. The other vendor does not have enough channa in the doubles.
But the man with the huge bara, the tamarind and so… makes me think that in looking for one thing, I might be missing out on something else… that we would get a Guyana doubles, with tamarind and other kind of pickles, and if he moves his cart near to a cane juice stand or turmeric juice, then no need for Apple J.
I hope I find him again. I hope he gets more bandaniya and that he is successful.
As I walk away… I hear another man wheeling a cart and shouting “puri and shark… soursop juice.” Bake and shark is another Trini thing—puri and shark the Guyana version?