40 MAY 2020
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HE RUB OF TIME is that when
you meet your ancestors, they’re
already old. I know my grandfa-
ther not as a young man, clean-
cut with a skinny tie, but as Papa
Winston, a cloud of a white beard
ringing his chin and laugh lines like rivers creasing his eyes.
But I have to admit, when I met him in Miami a few months
ago on our way to Trinidad, he had all the joy of a young man
embarking on a new adventure.
My grandfather was born in Trinidad on Christmas Day in- When he moved to the States at age 25, he carried with
him Scotch bonnet peppers, a college degree, determination,
and dreams. He met my grandmother, Cassie, in 1977 and settled
first in Long Island, New York, then Yorktown, Virginia. Time
flew, he grew, became a father, then a grandfather 10 times over,
and then a great-grandfather. He didn’t make it back to Trinidad
often, but he carried his home in his West Indian accent and
in the flavors of his cooking—an inheritance of hot pepper sauce
and goat roti. I grew up with those Trini flavors, which are now
part of the story of the African diaspora I tell at my restaurant,
Kith/Kin, in Washington, D.C. Since he retired, Papa has been
back to Trinidad a few times, mostly for funerals, as his siblings
have been whittled down from a dozen to now just eight. I had
never gone with him to visit. Until now.
We arrived in Port of Spain and stepped directly into history.
Trinidad and its twin island state, Tobago, have been deeply im-
printed by centuries of colonialism and bloodshed from British,
French, and Spanish occupation; the importation of Indian labor
and African slaves; and the exploitation of indigenous Carib and
Taino cultures. The less-terrible legacy of all of this is that the
culture has been blitzed into an astonishing and vibrant mix. You
can trace a straight line from the fluffy plates of cou-cou, a polenta
made of cornmeal and okra, back to African slaves who arrived
in the 18th century. There are French riffs on dishes that are
chopped and screwed through the patois and come out a thou-
sand times better and spicier, like buljol, a salt cod, pepper, and
tomato salad. Thanks to the large Indian population, spicy pho-
lourie, an evolution of pakora, and golden fried mashed potato
pockets called aloo pie are hawked on every street corner. Cumin,
a staple in the Indian pantry, is here called geera and used in my
favorite Trini dish ever: chunks of spicy-as-hell geera pork.
Fresh from the plane, Papa and I were hungry and made a
beeline for the parking lot. There, a man with a cooler for drinks
and a shopping cart for ingredients sold lunch in the blazing
sun. He sold doubles: two pieces of bara, a flatbread, with cur-
ried chickpeas, or channa, and a Scotch bonnet hot sauce that
burnt my face off. It was feeding people at its most elemental,
and it was delicious. Papa and I ate, checked into our hotel, and
waited for the sun to set and the air to cool.
In the morning, Papa said he wanted to show me something.
We took a car to Saint James, a sprawling neighborhood in theFW_0520_Kwame.indd 40 FINAL 3/18/20 4:15 PM