Shas­tri Boodan

The aro­ma of fire-roast­ed veg­eta­bles, fresh­ly pre­pared cho­ka and hot sa­da roti filled the Cou­va South Au­di­to­ri­um on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 23, as em­ploy­ees of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) put their culi­nary skills to the test in the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s first-ever cho­ka cook-out com­pe­ti­tion.

Held at Cam­den Road, Cou­va, as part of T&TEC’s an­nu­al Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, the event brought to­geth­er teams from across the elec­tric­i­ty provider’s var­i­ous di­vi­sions in a spir­it­ed con­test cel­e­brat­ing the flavours and tra­di­tions of East In­di­an cui­sine.

Af­ter hours of roast­ing, grind­ing, sea­son­ing and blend­ing in­gre­di­ents, the team rep­re­sent­ing Dis­tri­b­u­tion South and Dis­tri­b­u­tion To­ba­go emerged as the win­ner, com­bin­ing their tal­ents to pre­pare their en­tries for the judges.

For the par­tic­i­pants, the com­pe­ti­tion was about more than pro­duc­ing a tasty dish. It was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate a culi­nary tra­di­tion deeply root­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s In­di­an her­itage while strength­en­ing ca­ma­raderie among col­leagues.

Crys­tal Kissoon-Sinanan, a mem­ber of the Di­vali Com­mit­tee, said five teams par­tic­i­pat­ed in the in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion, rep­re­sent­ing dif­fer­ent di­vi­sions and de­part­ments with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The teams were Dis­tri­b­u­tion East and Mt Hope; Dis­tri­b­u­tion North and Head Of­fice; Dis­tri­b­u­tion Cen­tral and Cen­tral Ware­house; Trans­mis­sion Di­vi­sion and Pub­lic Light­ing De­part­ment; and Dis­tri­b­u­tion South and Dis­tri­b­u­tion To­ba­go.

Each team was re­quired to pre­pare three va­ri­eties of cho­ka, ac­com­pa­nied by sa­da roti.

“We have five teams. All teams must make three chokas: toma­to cho­ka, bhaigan cho­ka and a wild card, where they can make any oth­er cho­ka, along with sa­da roti,” Kissoon-Sinanan ex­plained.

The com­pul­so­ry toma­to and bhaigan cho­ka en­tries test­ed the teams’ abil­i­ty to pre­pare two pop­u­lar dish­es, while the wild-card cat­e­go­ry al­lowed them to demon­strate their cre­ativ­i­ty and in­tro­duce oth­er vari­a­tions of the tra­di­tion­al dish.

Cho­ka, a sta­ple of many Trinida­di­an house­holds, is typ­i­cal­ly pre­pared by roast­ing veg­eta­bles such as toma­toes and bhaigan (egg­plant) over an open flame be­fore crush­ing and sea­son­ing them with in­gre­di­ents in­clud­ing gar­lic, pep­per and onion. The re­sult is a smoky, flavour­ful dish com­mon­ly en­joyed with sa­da roti.

The T&TEC teams re­turned to tra­di­tion­al cook­ing meth­ods to pre­pare their dish­es. Par­tic­i­pants used tra­di­tion­al choolas along­side gas stoves to roast their veg­eta­bles, bring­ing the fa­mil­iar sights and aro­mas of home cook­ing in­to the work­place.

Cook­ing be­gan at 2 pm and con­tin­ued un­til 5 pm, giv­ing the teams three hours to pre­pare their dish­es. There was no lim­it on the num­ber of mem­bers per team, al­low­ing col­leagues to pool their skills and work to­geth­er through­out the com­pe­ti­tion.

Kissoon-Sinanan said the re­sponse to the event had been “fab­u­lous”, re­flect­ing em­ploy­ees’ en­thu­si­asm for the new ad­di­tion to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions.

The com­pe­ti­tion al­so of­fered an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case the di­ver­si­ty of cho­ka prepa­ra­tions, with teams com­bin­ing tra­di­tion­al tech­niques, sea­son­ing and in­di­vid­ual touch­es to pro­duce their en­tries.

The cook-out in­tro­duced a dis­tinct­ly lo­cal culi­nary el­e­ment to the cel­e­bra­tions, plac­ing the spot­light on a much-loved dish that con­nects food, fam­i­ly and cul­tur­al her­itage.

With the win­ning team draw­ing on the com­bined ef­forts of Dis­tri­b­u­tion South and Dis­tri­b­u­tion To­ba­go, the event demon­strat­ed that, much like a well-sea­soned cho­ka, team­work can make all the dif­fer­ence.