Building community and fostering interaction through food were the objectives behind Tortuga Parish's “My Community Can Cook” competition held on September 29.

According to parish priest Fr Steve Duncan, "the idea was to bring community together. The perfect way to do it was through food, which is a popular way of socialising in our society."

This first ever event to be held in the parish was organised by the members of the Family Life Unit (FLU). It was held at the Gasparillo RC church car park and saw approximately 350 persons in attendance.

The group Moments were on hand to offer parang music at the beginning of the competition while DJ Roy Francis kept the gathering entertained as he mixed music until the end of the programme. Persons from other parishes joined in including invitees from San Fernando and Chaguanas.

A sample of the American dish from the Mayo community

One of the judges, Mrs Debbie Hilaire, samples some of the Gasparillo community's African food

Patrons were given the option of sampling any three dishes with their $60 tickets.

The five booths on hand comprised seven of the nine communities and they offered dishes from Africa, India, Spain, America and Italy. 

The judges sampled some of the known menus that came to T&T from these countries, including, pizza, stewed fish, turkey, burgers and curried chicken and signature dishes which were new to most. Some were unpronounceable and had participants curiously asking, "What is this?"

One such dish was the Rio Nyama from the Gasparillo community's African dishes.

This is a Kenyan dish and, according to its chef, Hugh Bailey, is one other main dishes of the Kikuyu tribe.

Mr Bailey, who spent ten years in Kenya as an aircraft engineer, was able to offer his expertise in preparing the rio which was a combination of dasheen, potato, corn and red bean and the nyama which included beef with sweet pepper, onion, tomato and parsley.

The group from the Tortuga community, who represented India, displayed bhagi  kufta  as  their  signature  dish.

This was made with split peas and dasheen leaves and included broccoli and spices.

There was rice ball from the Italian team from Caratal I and II. Rice ball was a combination of rice, mozzarella cheese and spices rolled into a ball and fried. The choice for signature dish by the Mayo community was the African-American dish “Hoppin John”, a meal of black-eyed peas and rice.

The eventual winning cuisine, however, was the rice dish La Paella cooked by the Spanish group.

According to the sign posted by the  "Spanish" from the Piparo/Kelly Junction community, it is the first option for many Spanish people when they celebrate an event.

The sign further said that this sort of paella is eaten to celebrate "the Romeria de la Fuensanta" meaning "the city patron saints" and is the signature dish for Spain in the month of September.

Tortuga community danced in their saris to chutney music as they were named the overall winners of the competition and collected the first prize of  $3,000. 

Theresa Roberts, who was from this group, explained that it required  "good planning and a lot of team work." She said the Hindu community assisted and there was help from families, staff members and parents.

Gasparillo placed second and were awarded $2,000 while the Caratal I and II team won the $1,000 third place prize. Mayo received the prize for the most authentic booth as their colourful fruit sculptors of alligators, fruit baskets and an owl made for an attractive display.

FLU members were thankful to everyone who assisted and as one member, Neera Dass, said,  "I was glad most of the communities participated and tried their best."