A Visual Tour Of Anthony Bourdain’s Travels Through Trinidad


This week we found Anthony Bourdain bouncing around the island of Trinidad on ‘Parts Unknown.’ The Caribbean island is one half of the nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The latter being the tropical island resort destination and former being the industrial, financial, and cultural center of the nation.

“You don’t go to Trinidad for the beaches. It ain’t no tropical paradise,” Bourdain warns in his opening narration. Throughout the episode, his focus remained on the varied cultures of Trinidad, as he dove into global communities calling the island home.

As always, the episode featured an array of great looking food and plenty of beer to wash it all down.

TRINIDAD

“Live together or live in the sea,” exclaims one of Bourdain’s Trinidadian sidekicks. Those words highlight how multiculturally mixed the island is — 35 percent East Indian, 35 percent African, with the rest a mixture of the two or descended from some other corner of the world. It’s a diverse place.

It’s also the industrial side of the Trinidad and Tobago dyad. Bourdain and his crew don’t shy away from showing the horizon full of cooling towers and oil refineries that stretch across the island. But even with that industrial miasma, there’s still a distinct tropical beauty and warmth in the episode.

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PORT OF SPAIN

Bourdain spends the bulk of the episode exploring Trinidad via its capital — Port Of Spain. The city is home to around 130,000 people. Bourdain offers an entry point into Trinidadian life by sticking to what he knows best in highlighting a martial arts, some music, and plenty of food.

Bourdain partakes in some stick fighting with an expert named King David and then explores the finer arts of steel drumming around the city. In between those stops, there’s a lot of small bottles of lager and deliciously photographed food.

FOOD

Bourdain seemed to bounce around a lot in this episode, eating with the people more so than eating at any particular restaurant. He enjoyed a lot of street food and a smorgasbord Middle Eastern spread at a someone’s house.

One food Bourdain was implored to try was the local fried bread. “Doubles” are a mainstay of street cuisine on the Caribbean isle. They’re basically the Trinidadian take on India’s chana bhatura. That’s a piece of fried bread smothered in a very light chickpea curry, pepper sauce, and some mango. It’s delectable.

As Bourdain explored Trinidadian life he also partook in some ‘cutters’ (food that’s eaten to cut through the alcohol being consumed), the highlight being a luscious looking curried duck.

Bourdain also dropped into Port Of Spain’s famed street food spot in Queen’s Park Savannah. He talked life in Trinidad and the wonders of Carnival over some deep fried snapper and rice at Jus Foods’ street stall.

CARNIVAL

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Bourdain sheepishly admitted he’s never attended a Mardi Gras or Carnival anywhere in the world in this episode. Well, Trinidad might be the best place to start.

The island nation’s Carnival, accompanying parades, and lust-driven bacchanal is stuff of legend when it comes to parties worth traveling for. We’ve implored you to check out Trinidad’s Carnival in the past and now it has the Bourdain seal of approval.