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Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad and Tobago

Published 2018

About

In 1924 when my father Krisnaram was born in Trinidad, the “bush” still extended over most of the land, except where punctuated by vast sugarcane fields managed by English or Scottish estate owners. There was no running water and only a few cars. Electricity was barely heard of, even in the British enclaves.

Although my grandfather, Reuben, had died by the time my father was a year old, leaving my grandmother to struggle with feeding herself and six children, she was considered a well-off woman—a “proprietress”—as Reuben had left her land, including a double lot with a one-room shack. The little house stood on stilts, a common construction in the Caribbean that added living space “under the house” where it was cooler, and also raised the building above torrential rains, vermin, and dust.