Sunday “Morn’n Morn’n” Trini-Style
How quickly new becomes norm. . . Our Sunday morning routine, for example. It came about as a form of penance. One Sunday morning we decided to pay for our night before indulgence with a hike up Lady Chancellor Hill, a long, shady, winding road rising up from the city of Port-of-Spain.
It’s named for Lady Sylvia Chancellor who “was born the year Queen Victoria died”, 1901. From what I could dig up, Lady Sylvia was a philanthropist who lived and died in England, so I have no clue why the hill is named for her, except that her obituary said she was a “tough” old bird and her hill, 3.2 k long with an ascent of 600 feet from base to look-out, is a “tough” old hill.
On a clear morning the view from the look-out is spec-tac-u-lar!
It has to be way early Sunday, don't ya know, for the road through St. James to be this empty.
On the drive to "the Hill"—either to fortify himself and/or postpone the impending punishment—Curtis pulled up beside a road-side stand in St. James selling “doubles.”
Vendors wake in the wee hours to cook up a batch of curried chickpeas and fry up stacks of bread for the day.
Popular doubles vendors will have a crowd around. "One for here, one for take-away" and they sell out early.
Doubles sauces include mango, shado beni (a green sauce made from a cilantro-like herb), tamarind, and pepper sauce, if desired (I like it “slight” meaning a dash, Curtis likes more)
Wrapped and twisted in wax paper, my doubles ready to take-away
Doubles is? are?* hands down and dripping with sauce, the most popular Trinidadian street food. A "doubles" is a curried chickpea sandwich, really, but so much more: a shot-put sized round of flat bread, called “bara” is topped with a dollop of curried chick peas, splashed with sauces, and a second “bara” is placed on top.
According to Wikipedia (my go-to source for quick info) “Doubles was invented in Princes Town, Trinidad by “Emamool Deen (a.k.a. Mamoodeen) and his wife Rasulan in 1936.” They started by topping a single round of bara with curried chickpeas. However, customers would ask them to “double the bara, hence the name ‘doubles’ evolved”
We bought a couple of doubles (2 for $8, about $1.30 U.S.) drove part-way up the hill to the Horticulture Society parking lot, sat on the edge of a planter, gobbled down our doubles, then hiked the hill.
The next Sunday we did it again. And now it’s “what we do.”
While we walk/climb/creep up Lady Chancellor, because "Trinis", Trinidadians, we pass, regardless of age or how winded, calls out “Morn’n Morn’n!” or “Guh-day! Guh-day” always two times—doubles—we do that too.
“Morn’n Morn’n!
* Is they is or is they are? My friebor Brian pointed out that doubles singular or plural is still doubles