experience
The Trinidad
T&T Culinary Teams Looks to Raise the Bar
Foodies like me and those in the hospitality industry in T&T have become almost accustomed to hearing that the Trinidad and Tobago Culinary team came home from the annual Taste of the Caribbean competition, held in Puerto Rico in 2010, with a gold medal. After all, the team has been grabbing gold for the past five years, four of which have been led by Chef Bernard Long. “The different cultural cuisines that we can pull upon help to give us the edge,” said Long. From the time that the team is chosen early in the year, they practice hard together to present well at the Taste of the Caribbean. And in addition to winning gold as a team, individual chefs also get a chance to shine. Chefs Sabrina Rosales (Sabrina’s Executive Caterers), Lennox Scott, (Botticellis Restaurant) and Adrian Cumberbatch, (The Carlton Savannah) all distinguished themselves in the individual chefs competition, Rosales winning silver and the gentlemen both earning bronze medals. And Carla Cupid was originally chosen to be team bartender. Sean Daniel replaced her since she couldn’t obtain a US visa in time, butCupid created the drink that was awarded Most Creative Rum Drink at the competition. Even the youngest chef on the team, 22-year-old junior chef Abhay Nair, won a prize for most innovative junior chef, based on a mystery basket of ingredients. The position of junior chef is new and
by Desiree Seebaran
Nair was the first to be chosen to fill that position for the T&T team. But now that the team has proven its superiority in the Caribbean many times over since T&T first entered Taste of the Caribbean in 1999, it’s time to look further afield. Long certainly thinks so. “What I and a lot of the past winning team members are looking forward to doing is forming a senior culinary team. I’ve been on the team since 1997; we’ve won the competition four times, and no one else has done that.” Long and his counterparts are looking to enter the Culinary Olympics in Frankfurt, Germany, one of the most prestigious culinary competitions around, as well as other high profile competitions in Europe and the United States to put T&T on the map as a culinary destination. This ambition is definitely supported by the Trinidad Hotels Restaurants and Tourism Association (THRTA), the body that selects the culinary team, raises sponsorship and prepares them for international competition. T&T team next year, led by Raymond Edwards from the Courtyard Marriot, will be the first team to really benefit from this new direction. From 2011, the Taste of the Caribbean will be held on Miami, Florida. “We are putting our funding packages together, looking to form partnerships,” said THRTA executive director Richard Hackshaw. “We have the talent, and ones who want it the most will go.”
Junior chef Abhay Nair won Most Innovative Junior Chef with this dish
Hackshaw also said that there’s a need to brand T&T with national dishes, and the culinary teams of the future are part of that marketing thrust. “There are several street foods that come to mind when you say T&T, like doubles, shark and bake. But we want more than that; we want to own pelau, curried duck, fish broth.” The team is definitely continuing to carve out a niche for itself and its promising trajectory is something to aspire to for up and coming young chefs like Nair. “It does open doors for you to network and meet people in the hotel industry and the tourism industry as a whole, and get the benefit of advice and experience and their mistakes,” Nair said.
The Ins & Outs of Trinidad and Tobago
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