I would stand in her small, modest kitchen and watch her from start to finish. Nimble but strong hands – to cut up provision and gently roll dumplings into this specific shape she insisted upon for this classic Trini soup. When food was ready, she would call out to us, “Chirren! Chirren!”
Generally the soup base is split peas, as with corn soup. But, there is also a heavy helping of ‘grey steel’ (ground provision) whatever kind you may have on-hand (dasheen, eddoes, cassava, sweet potato, yam) salted meat (beef or pigtail) or fresh beef (referred to simply as beef soup) and of course, wheat flour dumplings.
Any other vegetables like carrots, pumpkin, plantain, green fig and ochre are welcomed. Maggie soup and/or bouillon cubes was our choice of flavour enhancer together with lots of garlic, onion and hot pepper.
This soup is thick and rich and hearty. Of course, there must be a thin film of melted golden ray butter over the top.
"Get that great creole flavour with Golden Ray!...and if you haven't got Golden Ray, you could boil an egg or something"...you remember that commercial on the radio?? Trinis win yes.
Cow heel soup - I don’t know why Trinis named this part of the animal “cow heel”. Sounds so dainty and lady-like. But it's so not!
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| High heels make my calves look sexy! |
My father took a delight in eating this for lunch at his work canteen almost every day. Who could blame him? The soup is similar to sancoche but most people have their own variation of the basic recipe. One thing is a must and that is to pressure cook the meat which is very tough – the tendons make it so. There is a somewhat gelatinous texture to the soup....
Oxtail soup as the name implies, contains oxtail. The soup is similar to sancoche but the oxtail is the star here. This soup requires both a spoon and clean hands to do it justice.
Rain or shine, these Trini soups fill you up to the top! And there's no such thing as a "small pot of soup" in Trinidad...
I put golden ray in everything.
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