Condiments, ok not strictly street food but an accompaniment for sure!

Stop at any street food vendor and there will be an array of condiments to choose from to accompany your food. These can include pepper sauces, chutneys and pickles - if homemade all the better. Pepper sauces are made by using a variety of hot peppers like scotch bonnet, 7-pot, moruga scorpion, ghost, either minced or chopped together with other spices. 

"The pepper sauce lady of Tabaquite"

The peppers used in these Trini sauces are not for the feint-hearted. They are all ranked in the top 10 world’s hottest peppers 2016 according to Crazy Hot Seeds (https://www.crazyhotseeds.com/top-10-worlds-hottest-peppers/). The previous world champion, Moruga Scorpion has been dethroned to the new Guiness World Records World’s Hottest Pepper, the Carolina Reaper.

The "mother-in-law" is another popular condiment which is a coarsely chopped spicy medley of habaneros, carrots, caraille (bitter melon) and other spices. All the ingredients are raw in this condiment.

Ever wonder why they call this “mother-in-law”?

The name was created probably from the attitudes of some mothers-in-law who always seem to have a fiery retort on-hand. Most times in Trinidad when you got to an East Indian wedding or prayer meeting the most and foremost thing that have to be available is mother-in-law. It is said that if you don't have this condiment in any of those events it is not an "Indian" feast, it’s almost an insult not to have it at such East Indian events. A tradition of some sort. 

Pepper sauce can sometimes include lime or lemon as well as other vegetables, and come in many variations and flavors.

Chutneys are popular as well and often include mango, tamarind, cucumber, shado beni, and sometimes coconut.

Mango chutney

There are a variety of popular condiments known locally as Achar which are commonly used to accompany the meal. These are made out of mango or pommecythere. Other Achars are made from tamarind, and Dillenia indica or Chalta as its known locally.

Pommecyhere achar

Kuchela is a grated spicy version, usually made from mango but sometimes made from Pommecythère. 

Roasted coconut

Grating roasted coconut

Coconut chutney

Drying shredded mango in the sun to make kuchela

Mango kuchela