Though I love to experience new things, my comfort zone has weird parameters. I don’t like to eat standing in the street much, I feel like people are watching me. And generally, I don’t like spicy food in the morning. Given those two things, one would assume eating doubles in Trinidad would not be for me. Not so.
The first morning Keifel took me to his favorite doubles man in St. James, I stood there feeling oddly shy and awkward. Keifel ordered for me and, honestly, I couldn’t understand a word that passed between him and the guy slinging doubles. Keifel handed me a blue, waxed paper square with two small eggy looking pancakes and a slurry of chick peas with pepper sauce and another sauce that smelled heavily of cilantro.
I curled one of the pancakes in my free hand and scooped up a big mouthful of chickpea. I was on fire, not stomping-in-the-street- please-hose-me-down on fire, but close. We discovered fairly quickly that “slight pepper” is the way to go with my order. After Keifel had a couple more and we both drank a grapefruit juice cocktail kind of thing bottled in reused Coca-cola bottles, we washed our hands with water from a plastic jug. I tried really hard not to think about the possibility of being struck by a car and flung into the doubles cart.
By the forth trip to St. James for breakfast, I would have happily stood in the middle of the main road at rush hour if that were the only place to get doubles. I am truly and thoroughly addicted — to the whole experience. Everything. From holding the warmed square of waxed paper in my hand to the indelicacy of scooping up something not much thicker than soup without the benefit of utensils. Even the morning hustle and bustle of the busy street and customers clamoring for their breakfasts seem integral to what doubles are supposed to be. Not to mention that they are the cheapest, most tasty breakfast to be had, anywhere. Period.
Since I’ve been back, I’ve found at least ten recipes for doubles. I’ve discovered that what smells of cilantro in Trinidad is actually a plant called shadon beni or “shadow beni” in local parlance. Here it is sold in Latin markets as culantro or long cilantro. It’s about twice as pungent taste-wise but the smell is identical. I’ve figured out that what makes the pancakes yellow isn’t eggs, but turmeric and that they aren’t called pancakes. But I think until I can learn to make them from a pro and have the capital to open my own doubles cart, I’ll have to wait until I am in Trinidad again and can prod Keifel awake and beg him to take me to St. James.
