Why is Trinidadian food Indian?

Indians arrived on the island with their traditional spices and foods, which, once incorporated, altered the local cuisine even further. The most significant spice was curry. Like stews, any type of meat can be curried and is eaten mostly with roti in their many variations (paratha, dhalphourie, dosti).

Why is Caribbean food like Indian food?

The Indian influence embedded in Caribbean cuisine is evident in the popularity of curry powder, which shows up as a seasoning on almost every menu in the form of fillings and breads like roti, patties, and in the stews themselves.

Are people from Trinidad of Indian descent?

About 40% of the population of Trinidad and Tobago is of Indian descent, which may come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with the country's British colonial past.

Is Trinidad part Indian?

The ethnic makeup of Trinidad is dominated by two groups, roughly equal in size: descendants of enslaved people, whose ancestors were brought in to work on cotton and sugar plantations beginning in the late 18th century, and Indo-Trinidadians, or East Indians, whose ancestors were primarily labourers who immigrated ...

Is Trinidad related to India?

The relationship between India and Trinidad & Tobago started on 30 May 1845, when the first ship ''Fatel Razack'' to bring 225 indentured labourers to Trinidad from India. Today, 37% of Trinidad and Tobago's population are of Indian descent.

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What percentage of Trinidad is Indian?

1,221,047 (July 2021 est.) East Indian 35.4%, African descent 34.2%, mixed - other 15.3%, mixed - African/East Indian 7.7%, other 1.3%, unspecified 6.2% (2011 est.)

Does Trinidad have a large Indian population?

A Trinidadian friend I checked with said “Indians are the largest ethnic group by a tiny margin, 37% of the population, but not an absolute majority. Africans 36%, mixed 24%.

Why are there Indians in the West Indies?

170 years ago, the first group of Indians were brought to the Caribbean. Indentureship came after the end of slavery. And workers, mostly from East India, were brought to the Caribbean to replace African slaves on British plantations across what was then the West Indies.

What are Trinidadians mixed with?

' Since its colonization by Spain and then Britain, Trinidad has been the site of the mixing of peoples and cultures, including the original Carib inhabitants, Spanish, French, and British colonists, freed coloreds and African slaves, Chinese, Syrian, and Portuguese immigrants, and indentured laborers from India.

Are there white Trinidadians?

White Trinidadians (sometimes Euro-Trinidadians and Tobagonians or local-whites) are Trinidadians of European descent.

Why is Jamaican food Indian?

Indian. Thousands of indentured workers were brought to Jamaica in the 19th century by their British colonial overlords. Indian flavors really work to tie everything together for Jamaican cuisine by introducing a love of strong and well-treated spices to the Jamaican palate.

Why does Jamaica have Indian food?

In the early 1800s during Britain's colonial rule of India and Jamaica, many Indian immigrants became indentured servants and brought their spices to Jamaica with them.

Is Jamaican food inspired by Indian food?

Jamaican cuisine includes a mixture of cooking techniques, flavours and spices influenced by Amerindian, African, Irish, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Indian, Chinese and Middle Eastern people who have inhabited the island.

What race are Trinidad?

Among its neighbours, the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago stands out due to its ethnic makeup. The population of most Caribbean nations is mainly of African descent; similar to Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago is evenly divided between Afro-Trinidadians and Indo-Trinidadians.

Are Trinidadians black or brown?

The island of Trinidad is mainly multiracial while the population of Tobago is primarily what is considered Afro-Tobagonian, which is synonymous with Afro-Trinidadian, with the exception that the people of Tobago are almost exclusively of direct African ancestry.

How many Hindus are there in Trinidad?

Today, there are roughly 240,000 declared Hindus in Trinidad and Tobago, comprising about 18 percent of the island's population, and if one were to visit, the presence of this population would be potently witnessed.

Which island has most Indian population?

India's most populous island is Salsette; the island is located on the western side of the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city of Thane, the metropolis of Mumbai, is located on this island. Salsette Island is situated in the state of Maharashtra. It is one of the most populous densely populated islands in the World.

Is Guyanese Indian?

The people of Guyana, or Guyanese, come from a wide array of backgrounds and cultures including aboriginal natives, also known as Amerindians, and those who are descended from the slaves and contract workers who worked in the sugar industry of the Caribbean for various European interests, mostly of Indian or African ...

What food did the East Indian bring to Trinidad?

The Indians were also skilled craftspeople, and with the tools they had brought to Trinidad they made tavas-- the iron griddles on which they baked their traditional roti bread--and carved swizzle sticks out of jackfruit wood, with which they pureed their dhal (lentils).

What is the race of an Indian?

Asian – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Are there Chinese in Trinidad?

Population Census (Vol. III, Part D) reports that there are 8361 Chinese descendents in Trinidad and Tobago, about one per cent of the population.

Is Trinidad a black country?

Afro-Trinidadians and Tobagonians make up the country's second largest ethnic group, with approximately 36.3% of the population identifying as being of African descent. People of African background were brought to the island as slaves as early as the 16th century.

Why is there curry in the Caribbean?

According to Sen's book, 1.5 million Indians migrated to other parts of the British Empire between 1834 and 1917, including 114,000 to Trinidad and Tobago and 36,000 to Jamaica. The mass migration resulted in an influx of new cooking techniques, ingredients and dishes, including curry.

Which ethnic group brought rice to the Caribbean?

Rice was popular in West African culture and the slaves brought the recipe with them to Jamaica and passed on the knowledge to their descendants.

Which ethnic group brought curry to Jamaica?

Curry was possibly first introduced here by the English who knew it through their colonisation of India and then by the East Indian who came to the island in the 19th century.