Taste Trinidad & Tobago Culinary Festival returns!

We've missed it the last couple of years, but Taste T&T is back this year in what seems to be a last minute addition to the Trinidad & Tobago festival calendar. Just in time for the FIFA Women's Under 17 World Cup being held on the islands in September, the culinary festival runs from the 2nd to 26th of September.

Much like the T&T Tourism Park was replaced by the mobile T&T Road Show, the new incarnation of Taste T&T features local communities: namely Toco, Tunapuna and Debe/Barrackpore. Fresh, tasty seafood will be the highlight no doubt, and fish broth takes centre stage at the launch of the community food festival on Sunday 12 September in Toco. One week later, expect mouth-watering curry duck and a range of delicious Indian sweets and street food on Caura Road in Tunapuna. Finally on Sunday 26th, all bets are off for the doubles competition in Debe/Barrackpore. Each community day will not only showcase local chefs, but host a variety of family activities, craft and food stalls, entertainment, and a farmers' market.

This year's featival also expands the original Taste T&T to include a lot more workshops and training for established and emerging chefs, restauranteurs and industry workers (slated for the 2nd and 3rd of September) in an effort to brand the island as a foodie's favourite destination. More than 400 chefs are expected to take part in the culinary workshops, which will be led by Danish celebrity chef, Claus Meyer; Rahman “Rock” Harper (winner of the reality cooking series Hell’s Kitchen) and top local chefs.

Trinis are serious lovers of food (and entertainment), and the culinary landscape has the diversity and decadance to match the island's people and culture. This is something the islands' Tourism Development Company (TDC) hopes to leverage in the country's tourism marketing thrust. According to its current President and Director of Tourism Ernest Littles:

Initiatives such as Taste T&T and our participation in trade shows and other international events where our indigenous cuisine is highlighted – such as the recent Caribana Taste of the Tropics food festival in Toronto – help to support the growth of the local sector while positioning our destination to tap into the lucrative culinary tourism market...

Trinidad and Tobago is blessed with a delicious diversity of foods and unique cooking styles... we recognise the importance of our indigenous cuisine as one of the main attractions of this destination and the TDC is expanding our brand through an enhanced programme of public awareness and culinary diplomacy."

To dive in to the culinary traditions and learn more about the country's best fine dining and street food experiences:

• The Trinidad Dining Experience: fine food, finger food, and everything in between
• Let's eat out: a guide to Tobago's restaurants
• The Trinidad Culinary Scene 
• Casual & Fine Dining in Tobago
• Behind the scenes at Veni Mangé: an interview with Alyson Hennessy and Roses Hezekiah
• The homegrown food & flavour of Tobago

Photos copyright Nestlé Trinidad Ltd and The Seahorse Inn (Tobago)

The Caribbean: great to visit, but not to live?

Well at least they admit it: "like any list, this one isn't perfect."

Newsweek has opened a hornets' nest of inter-island and inter-country rivalry (at least in the Caribbean) alongside scepticism from social scientists, journalists and marketing professionals with the release of its first – and now quite controversial – The World's Best Countries list, featuring the "world's top 100 countries".

The biggest problem here, and especially with marketing their project as such, is that only 100 countries were selected, so that these are not indeed "the world's best countries". And while it's relatively clear how those selected were ranked, it isn't entirely clear how countries were selected.

They explain their ranking and scoring criteria as such:

[W]e set out to answer a question that is at once simple and incredibly complex—if you were born today, which country would provide you the very best opportunity to live a healthy, safe, reasonably prosperous, and upwardly mobile life? ... NEWSWEEK chose five categories of national well-being—education, health, quality of life, economic competitiveness, and political environment—and compiled metrics within these categories across 100 nations. A weighted formula yielded an overall list of the world’s top 100 countries (for a look at the exact data points we used and how we weighted them, as well as how each country did across the various categories, check out newsweek.com).

The top 10 of the pre-selected countries is not altogether surprising (though this too, of course, is debatable). Scandinavian countries have long been celebrated for their quality of life (the cold nothwithstanding), while Japan, Australia and Canada round out the "best countries". The United States (#11) and the United Kingdom (#14) ranked just below.

It's not till the 30th spot that a representative from Latin America & the Caribbean finds its way into the list with Chile. And it's not until number 47 that we see any Caribbean country at all, with Jamaica opening the way for Cuba (#50) and the Dominican Republic (#55). These appear to be the only Caribbean nations selected for "rankining", and it is a bit perplexing why well-known economic or tourism hubs like Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago were excluded.

What do you think of Newsweek's "Best Countries" list, and of these ranking lists in general?

The Tobago International Cycling Classic returns this September

We've said it before and we'll say it again: for outdoor enthusiasts, both nature lovers and adrenalin junkies, Tobago is often a one-stop-shop.
Next month, the Tobago International Cycling Classic (27 September – 3 October) welcome cyclists from all over the world to this five-stage, seven-day road challenge that provides a lung-bursting way to see Tobago's stunning natural environment. As always, the Tour of Tobago is the feature event, and runs from Crown Point in the southwest to Charlotteville in the northeast.

This year, the events once expects competitiors from all over the world: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Germany, Holland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Caribbean region.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) is also expected to give the event its official endorsement, something which can give the event even greater international appeal and exposure. It's a prospect that has the event's promoter, Jeffrey Charles, excited about this and future installments of the competition:

[This] is a pivotal year for the Tobago International Cycling Classic, because for the first time we will have the attention of the UCI – the world’s governing body for cycling. UCI’s endorsement of the Tobago Classic is almost assured and will give to this event, and to Tobago, tremendous recognition, which will attract more international and regional interest in the coming years... We are targeting over 100 foreign competitors and their large contingents of officials, families, friends and supporters to be part of the 2010 Classic experience.

In addition to the cycling, the event will also help show off all that Tobago has to offer. There will be boat tours and lay day activities on Thursday 30 September and Friday 1 October, and also several events to encourage participation by local communities. There is also a Division 3 event targeting casual and non-competitive cyclers.

Photo: Owen Washington, published in Discover Trinidad & Tobago. 

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Coming Soon: the San Fernando Jazz Festival 2010 in Trinidad

Save the date: Saturday 25 September, 2010. That's when Jazz at the Top: the San Fernando Jazz Festival 2010 – of which Discover Trinidad & Tobago is a media sponsor – returns for its sixth edition.



The location of the event itself is half the treat: the top of the San Fernando Hill, with mangificent views of southern and central Trinidad, the Gulf of Paria, and even as far as northern Trinidad and Venezuela on a clear day.

Cuban artists take Trinidad by storm at the event, and special tribute will be paid to the late André Tanker. Well-known local vocalists and instrumentalists joining the stellar cast include Mavis John, Mungal Patasar and Pantar, Darren Sheppard of Kaizen Fusion, and more.

For more, contact: artistic director, Rudy Thomas (620-3918), marketing and promotions coordinator Reynold Bassant (741-7362), protocol and event management coordinator Carol Carvalho (657-9825), and sponsorship coordinator Joel Edwards (680-2958).

Photo: Mark Lyndersay

A weekend in Toco (northeast Trinidad)

I went to Toco the other weekend weekend – a hot winding three hour drive past CEPEP workers painting broken televisions white and deranged men spitting at the car as it drove away.

But I digress.

As someone who never ventures "past the lighthouse" (an expression we use in Trinidad to mean anything out of Port of Spain or northwest Trinidad), going to Toco is like pretending to be a tourist. Electricity poles don't crowd the sky grey, the traffic does not inch because it does not exist...and so I present unadulteratedly pretty pictures of the northeast coast and its beaches, taken by my friend Michele de Verteuil.

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Happy Emancipation Day!

Many of the English-speaking countries in the Caribbean celebrate Emancipation Day today, to commemorate the emancipation of African slaves and their descendants from British colonists in 1838. The abolition of slavery came four years earlier, and in the interim there was a period of "apprenticeship". The abolition of the slave trade in the British West Indies was formalised in 1807, with its bicentennial celebrated in much of the Commonwealth in 2007.

At our base in Trinidad and Tobago, Emancipation Day is marked with street processions (including towering moko jumbies and a flambeaux-lit Canboulay procession in the evening); church services; cultural shows; and countless events and activities at the Lidj Yasu Omowale Emancipation Village at the Jean Pierre Complex in Port of Spain that hosts craft and clothing stalls and shows featuring local and international acts. The 1st of August also marks the culmination of the Tobago Heritage Festival.

In addition to Emancipation celebrations, the Caribbean is abuzz with activity at this time of year. For more on T&T, visit the Discover T&T events calendar. And for all that's happening in the Caribbean for July and August, visit the Happenings section of the current Caribbean Beat magazine.

Here are some images from Discover Trinidad & Tobago from Emancipation celebrations in Trinidad:

How do you celebrate Emancipation Day where you are? And how close are we in the Caribbean to truly being "free"?
 

Images copyright (from first to last): Andrea de Silva, Anthony Harris and Edison Boodoosingh. Not to be reproduced without permission.

 

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