This is a chapter from my third book called Love letters
I love doubles. Every morning I eat one doubles. Some might say that is an obsession or an addiction and not love. The cynical among you might say I am just too lazy to prepare breakfast. Truth be told it is all of the above and more. For me doubles are a healthy, convenient, tasty and inexpensive breakfast option. I do not want to be a bad influence on anyone and encourage you to eat an unhealthy amount of doubles but for me, a doubles a day keeps my mind at bay. It is my cup of coffee. It is the familiar start of a good day for me. Consult your doctor and dietician to determine the dosage of doubles that is right for you. Maybe in the future we will see baked multigrain bara as an option.
My aunt asked my mother if I do not get fed up with the doubles and my quick retort was simply, "No. Not at all." When you are as expert as I am in the taste of doubles you figure out that the doubles taste differently everyday. No two baras are the same and no spoon of channa is the same and condiments are different all the time. The permutations are endless. Sometimes I get slight pepper that is not so slight. Like one time the doubles man had to warn me that the batch of peppers they got that time was extra hot because of the weather. Some days the doubles cooks are having a bad day and I can tell by the quality of doubles that day.
Sometimes I get surprised by a doubles that has the perfect hotness (as in temperature) by the time I reach home. That is when you say that the doubles lash that day. Life is like days with doubles, you never know exactly what you are going to get. Antigua says they have a beach for every day of the year and Trinidad has a doubles vendor for every day of the year and more. You could spend an entire year sampling all of Trinidad's doubles varieties. Doubles is a culinary orgasm that has you seeing double. This simple street food originating in the history of Trinidad's humble beginnings has been celebrated by food connoisseurs from around the world.
Anthony Bourdain described the doubles as, "the perfect street food: portable, affordable, and delicious. The chana is perfectly spiced and the bara is soft and chewy. It's the ultimate Trinidadian comfort food." Doubles is loved by many and so many people cannot be wrong. Show your hands if you bought doubles on the black market during the doubles drought of the pandemic. My love affair with doubles can be summed up in a poem I once wrote: The price is right, Gimme two with slight, Made in a flash, It does lash, Nutritious and fulling, When the wife not cooking.
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