The coastal com­mu­ni­ty of Care­nage, long recog­nised for its fish­ing her­itage and pop­u­lar lo­cal dish­es such as fish broth, roast fish and boni­to pelau, is set to high­light its culi­nary tra­di­tions and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it at an all-day food fes­ti­val lat­er this month.

The in­au­gur­al A Taste of Care­nage will take place on June 27 as the open­ing event for this year’s St Pe­ter’s fes­tiv­i­ties and will of­fer res­i­dents and vis­i­tors the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sam­ple a wide va­ri­ety of foods from across the com­mu­ni­ty, along­side live en­ter­tain­ment, fam­i­ly-friend­ly ac­tiv­i­ties, and dis­plays from lo­cal busi­ness­es.

Or­gan­ised by the Care­nage Com­mu­ni­ty Com­mit­tee in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mogul Sounds, the event will be staged at the Haig Street Recre­ation Ground.

Or­gan­is­ers said it was con­ceived to show­case the broad­er cul­tur­al and en­tre­pre­neur­ial strengths of the com­mu­ni­ty be­yond its well-known as­so­ci­a­tion with foot­ball.

“Usu­al­ly peo­ple come down to Care­nage for foot­ball be­cause that is some­thing every­body knows Care­nage for and we usu­al­ly see large crowds from all over the coun­try. But we want peo­ple to see the oth­er things that Care­nage is good at, and cook­ing is one of them,” said Aldrin John­son, spokesper­son for the Care­nage Com­mu­ni­ty Com­mit­tee.

John­son said pa­trons can ex­pect a di­verse culi­nary of­fer­ing, in­clud­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s well-known fish broth, boni­to pelau, and oth­er lo­cal favourites, along­side cre­ative food fu­sions pre­pared by res­i­dents from dif­fer­ent streets and neigh­bour­hoods.

“Taste of Care­nage was in­spired by Care­nage Day cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra in Brook­lyn, New York, but it has been adapt­ed in­to a com­mu­ni­ty-cen­tred fes­ti­val fo­cused on food, cul­ture, and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.”

“Each par­tic­i­pat­ing area will op­er­ate its own tent, of­fer­ing food sam­ples and show­cas­ing the unique flavours and tal­ents found through­out the area.”

He added that the fes­ti­val is al­so in­tend­ed to pro­vide ex­po­sure for small busi­ness­es and home-based en­tre­pre­neurs who may not typ­i­cal­ly have ac­cess to large au­di­ences.

“This is your op­por­tu­ni­ty to come un­der your com­mu­ni­ty tent, give out sam­ples, and pro­mote your busi­ness,” John­son said.

In ad­di­tion to the food of­fer­ings, the event will fea­ture per­for­mances from young en­ter­tain­ers, in­clud­ing emerg­ing so­ca artistes, a youth band, and a steel band from Point Cumana. A ded­i­cat­ed chil­dren’s zone will al­so op­er­ate through­out the day.

Or­gan­is­ers ex­pect par­tic­i­pa­tion from com­mu­ni­ties stretch­ing from Point Cumana to Abbe Pou­jade Street, with at least ten streets, neigh­bour­hoods and com­mu­ni­ty groups al­ready con­firmed.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, the event is about bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er and cel­e­brat­ing what makes Care­nage spe­cial,” John­son said.

He ex­pressed op­ti­mism that the fes­ti­val will be­come a reg­u­lar fea­ture of the an­nu­al St. Pe­ter’s cel­e­bra­tions, de­spite the ab­sence of con­firmed cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship at this stage.

“We know that spon­sor­ship might be dif­fi­cult, but we are still hop­ing to get some sup­port. How­ev­er, we are mov­ing for­ward. It is turn­ing out to be a big­ger event than we had ini­tial­ly planned for, and that is be­cause the com­mu­ni­ty has come to­geth­er,” he said.

John­son added, “So, you’re com­ing to Care­nage to ex­pe­ri­ence more than just one as­pect of our vi­brant com­mu­ni­ty. We have main­tained peace in the com­mu­ni­ty for a few years, which we are hap­py about. And we want peo­ple to vis­it Care­nage, get a taste of who we are, and leave with a won­der­ful, long-last­ing im­pres­sion.”