Why Doubles Remain Trinidad’s Most Popular Food

There’s something distinctly satisfying about messy food: sauce dripping down the side of your mouth, juices drizzling across your fingers. It’s the experience you might have when eating a taco or a burger. And it’s most definitely the experience of eating doubles.

A popular street food from Trinidad and Tobago, doubles are made up of three elements: cumin and turmeric-laced bara (fried bread); flavorful channa (spelled with two n’s in Trinidad), or chickpeas; and spicy-sweet, tangy sauces and chutneys.

Recipes: Doubles | Spicy Mint-Cilantro Chutney | Tamarind Sauce

For Natasha Laggan, a cook and influencer who grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, doubles, sold from a bike, were a childhood staple.

“My mum and I would hear the bell, and we would just run out and stop him,” she said, of the man who would come through their neighborhood in Couva.