I’m embarassed to admit that this is only the second time that we’re featuring a Trinidadian artist in our Designer Desire series. The first was textile designer, Althea McNish – and that was way back in 2018!
Huggins is from a completely different generation to McNish, and their work and methods are poles apart. Huggins produces much of his work digitally on a computer using Adobe Illustrator.
I was introduced to Nicholas Huggins’ work not that long ago via a Global Voices article. I was struck by his bold use of colour and creativity in his hugely successful project that was part of 36daysoftype.
In it, he interpreted the vernacular architecture of the Caribbean in his own style, using all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0-9. He created a limited-edition print of the project which sold out within weeks.
The subjects of his illustrations are often subjects that are Trinidad & Tobago icons; rum, carnival, calypso, the beach, food & drink, folkloare and day to day views such as gas stations, parlours and roadside vendors.
The 36daysoftype illustrations are included at the top of our montage and below in a film where Nicholas talks about the project and the follow-up one.
Following on from last week’s pholourie recipe, here’s another of my favourite fried foods that hails from Trinidad – fried bakes (or fry-bake, if you’re a proper Trini!). ‘Fried bakes’ – a contradiction in terms!
My aunt sent me a recipe that she cut out of the TT Guardian – complete with a few of her personalisation notes!
It’s a very quick and simple recipe; a basic dough of flour, raising agent, fat and liquid – but the end product… wow!
Fried bakes are traditionally eaten with fried fish (the famous bake & shark eaten al fresco at the beach) or buljol, a spicy salted fish dish.
Here is a video of my aunt making fried bakes recently. This is what she advocates:
I decided that tapping the dough down into the oil, whilst turning it but by bit, results in it puffing up immediately.
As a vegetarian, I thought about what best to stuff them with. In the past, I’ve had them with extra mature cheddar, Branston pickle and salad. Perhaps smashed avocado or hummus with grated carrot. Instead, I went a step up and decided on fried bakes with grilled halloumi, salad and hot sauce.
These bakes are traditionally served with fried fish or buljol
Ingredients
260g/9oz plain flour
8g/¼oz butter/shortening
2 tsp baking powder
½tsp salt
½tsp brown sugar
190ml/6 fl oz water
vegetable oil for frying
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Instructions
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar
Rub in the butter/shortening until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
Add enough water to just about make a soft dough
Flour your work surface and knead for about 5 minutes
Cover the bowl with a tea towel and rest the dough for 30 minutes
Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and then divide each into 6 equal pieces (getting 12 in total). Or, weigh the entire ball of dough and divide into 12 equal weights; mine were about 40g/1⅖oz each
Rest the dough again for a further 5 minutes before rolling each piece into rounds about 7cm / 3" in diameter
In a heavy-bottomed, deep frying pan or saucepan, heat the vegetable oil and fry each bake making sure that it's covered in oil (my aunt recommends spooning oil over the top of the bake as it cooks, to help it puff up)
Carefully flip and fry the other side until fully ballooned or puffed
Remove and drain on kitchen paper to remove excess oil
Slice in half horizontally and load with your chosen filling
Print
Adapted from Trinidad & Tobago Guardian
Adapted from Trinidad & Tobago Guardian
H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/
When I published my recent post on Trinidad street food, the eagle-eyed ones of you would have noticed a glaring omission to the round up. Pholourie – fried balls made from spiced flour and served with either a mango or tamarind sauce.
For some reason, every Indian food stall I visited while I was in Trinidad either didn’t sell or had run out of the delicious snack. Now that I’m back in the UK, I’ve cooked my own home-made pholourie. I used the recipe from my Trini food bible, The Multi-Cultural Cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago and the Caribbean: Naparima Girls’ High School Cookbook. I converted all the measurements from cups to metric and imperial as well as scaled it down so that the portions were right for two people. It made around 20 small balls. It would be simple enough to scale it back up again if needed.
Where I live, it’s not easy to get hold of split pea flour without buying it off the internet, so I made my own. I have a little processor that’s for grinding spices so I used it to powder some dried split peas. It worked surprisingly well – I just sieved out the few residual lumps.
Simply combine all the ingredients (except the water) into a large bowl, make a well in the centre, pour in the water, whisk and spoon teaspoonfuls into pre-heated oil. A useful tip: dip two teaspoons into the cooking oil before you heat it. Use these to drop the batter into the pan – it will just slip right off!
I looked for tamarind concentrate in the supermarket to make a sauce to accompany my home-made pholourie. Instead, I came across a bottle of imli pani, which I’d never heard of previously. Apparently, it’s served alongside panipuri.
The imli pani ingredient list includes tamarind, sugar, cayenne, salt, chilli, mint, cumin coriander, mixed spices and black pepper. Not a million miles from a Trini ‘tambran’ sauce!
My pholourie was delicious – crisp on the outside, soft and spongy on the inside, with a lovely flavour. If I’d known how quick and easy they were to make… I might have set myself up with a street food stall – I’d clean up!
Fill a deep, heavy-bottomed pan with vegetable oil up to at least the 8cm / 3" mark
Dip two teaspoons into the oil and set them aside to use later
Preheat the pan of oil over a medium flame
In a large mixing bowl, combine the split pea flour, plain flour, baking powder, turmeric, salt, pepper sauce and garlic
Make a well in the centre and add the water
Whisk together to form a thick batter
Using the pair of oiled teaspoons, carefully drop a teaspoon of batter at a time into the hot oil. The size of my pan meant I could fit about 6 pholourie at a time
When the pholourie begin to float (less than a minute), turn them over using a metal skimmer or slotted spoon so they cook evenly
Remove from the pan onto some kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil
Repeat until all the batter has been used
Eat immediately
Serve with tamarind sauce or pepper mango chutney on the side
This is the second in my roving reports from Trinidad. Last time, I checked out the street food on offer. This week, I’m taking a trip around the island visiting popular and less well known Trinidad beaches.
During the 3 weeks that I was over there, I was lucky enough to go to Chaguaramas, Maracas, Las Cuevas and Mayaro – only a tiny proportion of the beaches the country has to offer. I reached out to a bunch of old school friends and my aunt, who was visiting at the same time, for images of the rest of the coastline. The response was overwhelming so I’ve managed to assemble a fabulous collection of photos – over a hundred… it was a true group effort!
You’ll grasp the varied history of the island from the diverse names of the places that I mention. Trinidad – with its indigenous Amerindian people – was colonised by the French, Spanish and finally, the British.
I’ve put the photographs into some semblance of order, beginning at Maracas in the north and travelling clockwise around the coast. There are even a couple of short film clips to add some extra island flavour!
Maracas
Probably the most popular beach in Trinidad – especially at the weekend. There’s a huge car park, changing facilities and plenty of food and drinks places. Deckchairs can be hired and there are safety flags and lifeguards on duty.
A little, almost hidden away, beach between Maracas and Las Cuevas. Because of this, it’s always more chilled and less crowded. The sea water is also calmer in this spot; therefore suitable for children and less confident swimmers.
Las Cuevas (Spanish for ‘The Caves’) was a lot more developed than the last time I’d visited; granted, that was way back in the 1980s sometime. There’s now a large car park, changing rooms and lifeguards. We visited midweek – so there were few people there. We stayed about 3 hours, leaving around 2pm. One thing I remember from the 80s though, the sandflies come out in force at sundown – I doubt that’s changed – bring your insect repellent if you’re visiting later in the day.
The name derives from the French for ‘washerwoman’. You access Blanchisseuse either via the North Coast Road or driving north from Arima via a twisting & turning road which passes the Asa Wright Nature Centre, a destination I highly recommend. Head for L’Anse Martin Bay to the West, Marianne Beach and River to the East and 3 Pools and Avocat Waterfall an inland hike from the river.
The Grande Riviere river empties out into Grande Riviere Bay. The beach is renowned for the huge leather-back turtles that return year after year to lay their eggs in the sand. Because of this spectacular natural phenomenon, the area has developed into an eco-tourism destination.
Toco is the most north-easterly place in Trinidad and the closest point to sister island, Tobago. It’s a popular spot with surfers, being the windy, rocky confluence of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. At the end of the road stands Galera Point Lighthouse.
I filmed a few seconds our journey to Mayaro through the rear windscreen of the minibus on our way to our trip to Shangri-la Vacation Home. Mile upon mile of coconut tree-lined road hugging the Atlantic shore, in parts, a few narrow (and, at times, perilous) feet away.
Manzanilla, as I said, is located along the Atlantic coast. The sea can be rough and choppy with dangerous currents – especially at high tide.
The coast of Manzanilla meets Mayaro at the bump that is Point Radix, the location of the spectacular 300-acre Ben Deloraine Nature Reserve. I’m not going to lie, I went all the way down to Mayaro with family but didn’t go near the beach or the sea; I stayed liming round the Shangri-La pool.
The main reason was because of the sargassum. It’s not as serious as it was last year, but it’s still piled up along the tide line and floats around in the sea. Another justification for me not embarking on the less than 5-minute walk to the beach wasn’t because I was lazy. No, it’s because I was stung by a man o’war jellyfish as a child in the sea at Mayaro; an experience I’ll never forget. But don’t let me put you off – Mayaro is a beautiful place!
Moruga is a small fishing community with a number of claims to fame. It is said to be the spot where Christopher Columbus landed when he ‘discovered’ Trinidad. The La Ruffin Bridge at Moruga is the only suspension bridge in use in Trinidad. It was originally built to transport the cocoa from the nearby plantations to market. Its maintenance was lacking – and local fishermen used it to moor their boats – resulting, in 1993, in its collapse into the river as a van was travelling over it. Luckily, it is now on the Heritage Asset Register. The town is home to the Trinidad Moruga scorpion – the 2nd-hottest chilli in the world.
Icacos is the most south-westerly point of Trinidad and therefore the polar opposite of Toco. It’s a calm peninsula of sandy beach bordered by a parade of coconut trees, a stone’s throw across the Gulf of Paria from Venezuela. Head for Columbus Bay where you’ll spot the Three Sisters rock formations out at sea.
The sea around the capital city isn’t necessarily a place to go for a swim. Rather, it’s arguably one of the best places in the country to pull over in your car – perhaps with a bite to eat – to watch the stunning sunsets this part of the coast enjoys.
Chaguaramas is a stretch of coastline that lies just to the west of Port of Spain. This makes it a place where people go (especially Macqueripe), mid-week, for a ‘quick dip’ to unwind after a day at work. It’s very accessible; Western Main Road runs closely alongside. The area is where sailing types congregate; a number of boat yards and marinas exist such as Small Boats, Power Boats and the Sailing Association.
Or ‘Dung-de-Ayelans’! Not a ‘beach’ as such – and only accessible by boat – Down-the-Islands is a little collection of mostly uninhabited islands in the Bocas (Spanish for ‘mouth.). They are touching distance from Venezuela. The islands include Monos (Spanish for ‘monkey’), Gaspar Grande, Huevos (Spanish for ‘eggs’) and Chacachacare (its original Amerindian name); the last being a former leper colony.
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