Hearty eating in Tobago
JANELLE DE SOUZA Sunday, December 25 2016
If you plan to be in Tobago for Christmas, prepare yourself to eat... a lot. From black cake and ham to wild meat and provision, Tobagonians welcome guests with food.
Laci Joseph of Signal Hill, Tobago told Sunday Newsday about some of the traditions that are still alive today.
The first is that of baking and sharing.
According to Joseph, at Christmas, the baking of black cake, fruit cake, sweetbread, and ‘heavy bread’ is expected in almost any home. She said while the baking of the heavy bread in dirt ovens was the traditional Christmas activity, and it still occurs in some rural areas, not many persons who live in urban area have dirt ovens in their villages and so it is a dying tradition.
The cake however, is not only for members of the household, but to share with family and friends. “Even if you bake cake, everybody else bakes too and different families would exchange. Even if everybody’s making black cake they still exchange just to say they exchanged cake,†she said.
Joseph said Christmas Day is usually a quiet one spent with the immediate family. She said they basically eat all day starting with ham and homemade bread, and “chocolate tea†for breakfast.
Then, for lunch, there is ham, pastelles, Christmas rice, stewed pigeon peas, callaloo, pork, goat, wild meat and provision, chicken and more. This huge amount of food is prepared in anticipation of Boxing Day when family, friends and neighbours come to visit and lime. Sometimes, these visitors are carollers who go around their neighbourhood and sing Christmas carols at their neighbours’ front doors.
And similar to parranderos in Trinidad, they expect to be fed.
“When you go to people’s house you can’t just give them a little ham or crackers or Pringles or planters nuts. It’s food they’re looking for so you have to make a lot of food and cake,†said Joseph. “You have to have at least three types of meat going on. People like to have lots of pork and wild meat, rabbit...
all kinds of things. Anything yes! Christmas time people just cook.
You have to have a lot of different meat - any type if meat you can find to cook - and sides like provision and coo coo, heavy stuff that would full them up so they don’t ask for too much,†she laughed.
Joseph added that some carolling occurs during the week before Christmas but it is a dying tradition. “As people become more busy and more insulated, people limit the carolling and sharing to family members in different parts of the island,†she noted.
In Tobago, almost all the cleaning and decorating for Christmas is done on Christmas Eve.
Joseph stated that some of the bigger homes may start cleaning a few days before Christmas Eve, and some persons may place Christmas lights on their homes early as well However, traditionally, inhabitants do it all, including the changing of curtains, painting, and Christmas decorating, on Christmas Eve.
“On Christmas eve, if you drive around the island, especially in the more traditional areas, you would see all the houses stripped with people now putting up their curtains, painting their outdoor stairs, so that they can ring in Christmas Day with everything new.
It’s like a new start but even the lighting up has become less and less over the years,†she said.
Joseph also recalled the time when kite flying was popular for Christmas. She said the playing fields of Bon Accord, where she grew up, would be full of children with homemade kites and there would be competitions for the biggest kite, noisiest kite, etc.
Now, she said, some children did not even know how to fly a kite.
“I find a lot of the traditions are changing up. Christmas has become more commercialised - people more worried about what gifts they getting or what to buy for the house while the traditions of going to visit family and things like that are dying,†she said.
:
