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Sometimes you find out something that you always took for granted but never thought about in the most surprising manner. Yesterday as I was about to leave work I picked up a magazine with a very unusual name - "The Red Bulletin". I took the magazine to read on the way home; rock climbing articles based on experiences in Brazil intrigued me. Then at the back of the magazine I came across a page with the headline, "Late Eats" Trinidad and Tobago Doubles"! The entire page was dedicated to our delicious "Doubles Finger Food Treat".
They had five paragraphs written about various aspects of this delicious Trinidad finger food. The first was titled "Twice As Nice". The following was reproduced from the article:
"Two pieces of bara-fried flatbread-are topped with curried chickpeas, chutney, and chili sauce. The flatbread is flour, water, baking powder, salt, and turmeric, which gives it a yellow color. The chickpeas, or channa, almost always contain shado beni, an aromatic herb with a cilantro-like flavor. Chutneys are mango, cucumber, or coconut".
The next paragraph that I chose to quote from the article is the one that was of interest to me. I have eaten "doubles" in Trinidad and in America and have tasted all kinds.. some good, some really delicious, and some that make you simply want to toss the entire lot out! The part that was of interest to me was the story told regarding how one flatbread (bara) and curried channa became known as "Doubles". It was under the paragraph heading, "One Is Never Enough":
"It is said the name "doubles" came about in 1937 when the Deen family were selling channa with a bara bread. Customers asked for another bara, and Deen's Doubles were born. The family went on to open a diner, and Deen's Doubles lives on today under different ownership".
The article appeared in "The Red Bulletin" but it appears that it originally came from the website www.triniberry.com. It was good to see our local delight featured in a very unexpected place and in this case "The Red Bulletin" - A Beyond The Ordinary Magazine.
