Steaming callaloo with crab claws poking from the tureen, a rich oil-down with plenty of coconut milk, slippery ochro rice and sweet toolum are a part of the local food culture that every schoolchild has been taught, owe their origins to our Afro-Trinbagonian ancestors.
What is not as widely known, however, is that these viands are rooted in a history of great deprivation and oppression, the like of which few of us today can even begin to comprehend. The jaded and highly pretentious Mrs Carmichael, a slave owner at Laurel Hill Estate in Tacarigua, published the following in 1834:
“Every field Negro has two pounds of excellent salt fish served out weekly and head people have four pounds. A pound and a half I allowed for every child from the day of its birth until 12 years of age when full allowance is given. This is the most favourite food of the Negro, and they prefer it to salt beef or pork, a small piece of which they relish occasionally.”
This is a prime example of the hogwash that the plantocracy recorded into history—the image of the happy, well-fed slave and the paternalistic master. Indeed, there were legal minimum standards that planters were obligated to meet, but since the law was practically never enforced and there was no real abolition society present in the colony to advocate the human rights of enslaved people, these were almost never met.
On June 30, 1800, the new British military governor, Lt Col Thomas Piction, issued an ordinance which proclaimed a certain weekly allowance of salt meat or fish and carbohydrates in the form of plantains or cornmeal. Provision grounds were to be given where possible and in lieu of those, slaves were entitled to an additional ration or cash compensation. The harsh reality was a far grimmer scenario.
These stipulations on the provisions of slaves formed a base upon which an entire cuisine was to be built. More often than not, planters neglected the regulations for minimum allowance because of the high cost of cornmeal, salt cod, herring and other foodstuffs which had to be imported from the United States.
The consequence was malnutrition on a vast scale and infant mortality rates that would stagger the sensibilities of any modern person. Historian Judy Raymond, in her epic work The Colour of Shadows, which was published this year, points out that according to Adam Hoschild:
“Male Caribbean enslaved workers were three inches shorter than those in the American South. Women were likely to go without and be even more undernourished in favour of their husbands and, of course, their children.”
The lack of protein in the diet of enslaved people led to many health issues, but also created gaps where innovation thrived as a matter of sheer starvation. Where there were provision grounds allotted to slaves, these were issued not out of any great compassion for their condition, but with the expectation that after a 12-hour day of gruelling toil and in whatever spare time allowed to them, slaves could cultivate provisions to feed themselves and thus absolve the masters of the expense of having to do so with the exception of the occasional addition of a rotten herring or two.
Indeed, as Ms Raymond points out in her book, that casks of herring thought unfit for white consumption were bought up in Barbados by planters who then issued them parsimoniously to their slaves—and Barbados was considered to be one the better colonies as far as the feeding of slaves went.
Those who were fortunate enough to have provision grounds could, by much hard work, grow surplus food which could be sold at market on Sundays or sometimes to other slaves. One or two judicious planters may even have bought their greens and roots this way. The sparse imported foods were combined with such crops as the slaves themselves could raise.
Yams were relatively easy to grow along with cassava, eddoes and other roots such as tanias and dasheen. They provided a substantial portion of the diet since they could be cooked in a variety of ways. Coconut milk, extracted laboriously from grating dried nuts, was added and the oil-down appeared in the pantheon of local dishes.
The ubiquitous plantain could be fried or boiled and then pounded, giving us another Sunday favourite in the form of pounded (pong) plantain. Breadfruit, brought to Trinidad from St Vincent by a Diego Martin slaver, also became a staple.
Next week, we will delve further into the history of Afro-Trinbagonian food.