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The Americas: Taking it From the Streets
By Daisann McLane
My friend Debbie is waiting with her car to pick me up at the airport as soon as I clear customs in Trinidad.
"Doubles," she says.
"Absolutely," I answer.
Doubles. To some, the word means tennis for four, but when you say it in Trinidad, people's mouths start watering. Along with the roti (a flour pancake wrapped around a curry mixture), doubles is Trinidad's unique contribution to world food. Like many such delicacies around the globe, it was born and nurtured on the street.
Debbie pulls her car over, rolls down the window and shouts, “Four, with plenty pepper.” In just under a minute, the vendor pulls out eight steaming fresh, deep-fried pieces of flat dough, spreads them with bright yellow chickpea curry, and tops that with neon-orange fresh pepper sauce made from the Caribbean's most fiery capsicum, the Scotch Bonnet. He layers them into sandwiches, and with a flick of his wrist, wraps each in paper, twisting the ends, leaving the top open for us to take that first bite.
Who invented doubles? No one knows for sure, yet there's little argument over the formula: The outside dough must be hot and fresh, not reheated. The chickpea curry filling should be substantial, not watery, for it will spill out when you bite in. The pepper sauce must be homemade, not off-the-shelf. And, above all, the doubles should be served immediately after preparation, eaten on the street.
That a humble street snack has inspired such fervent connoisseurship is by no means unique to Trinidad. All over the world, on street corners, in outdoor markets, along country roads, under palm-tree palapas by the beach, I've found similar national culinary treasures. From the 15-cent barbecued pork sticks of Bangkok to vatapa, the pungent dried shrimp sandwich of Bahia, Brazil, these foods are inseparable from the places and people that have nurtured them. To miss sampling these national treasures is like visiting Egypt and skipping the Pyramids.
Street food is culinary minimalism: Without walls or overhead, a chef is free to chase perfection, distill flavors and textures to their essence, learn directly, and sometimes painfully, from his or her customers what works and what doesn't.
In countries with a well-developed restaurant culture, you may indeed find this perfection served indoors. But in my favorite places, the true flavors are at the end of long, patient lines, steaming or frying in little carts, sending out those delicious aromas that tell me, with certainty, exactly where in the world I am.
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