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Off the top of my head, I can count 14 North American fast-food franchises thriving in Trinidad and Tobago. There are probably more, but this is the figure I reached without scrubbing my brain too hard.
It might not seem a lot, but the number of their outlets comes up to 206. Of that figure, KFC leads with 57, followed by Subway’s 40, and Church’s 26.
That’s quite a hefty array of brightly-coloured traps.
I rarely buy meals, and when I do, it’s never from that 14, or any other American franchise. I am stubborn to the point of being a nuisance in that regard (maybe in other ways too), but I am comfortable with my nuisance value.
I believe in supporting our homegrown products. I try to persuade people that if they crave fried, processed, sugary, floury concoctions, they could give the local stuff a try.
Taste buds are fine-tuned by marketing and these giant multi-national corporations that have sunk their greedy, insidious fangs into every cranny of the planet, have mastered the art of making us want them with the intensity of addicts.
If you think local stuff is inferior, compare them closely.
Our palates have been scientifically groomed to salivate at the thought of fast foods from the brands with the big budgets. Coca-Cola is the greatest example of successful branding.
Recently, I saw footage of the President of Guyana cutting a ribbon for the opening of a Wendy’s outlet in his country. Perhaps that’s what made my thoughts turn to this unfortunate trend.
It struck me that with Guyana’s wealth, the country is going to be flooded with these fast-food giants—if it isn’t already. T&T is a case study in that trend. The various business chambers are happy to meet and greet these outlets as they open their doors in communities.
Do they do likewise for small, local entrepreneurs?
They ignore the big picture conveniently.
And what’s the big picture?
From my own little corner, I squint at the landscape, I see how fast-food has smothered the local cuisine we proudly proclaim. I see how the American franchises use up our foreign currency.
I see how they have bred an unhealthy appetite. I see how our small businesses get burnt out of the marketplace—the homely enterprises selling food that is more often healthier, delicious and generally cheaper than these artificially inseminated tastes.
Our cuisine is a beautiful rendition of a whole heap of culinary influences from a culture that emerged from the people who came and settled and called this home. We have it all.
The hijacking of taste is concerning, as is the continuation of imperialist impositions on our ways of being. Why have we (and by we, I mean the various entities that have come and gone in the realm of governance), not seen the dangerous effect of this on the health of the populace?
It’s one thing to moan about the high rate of non-communicable diseases in this country, the lifestyle-related plague that has brought us to an alarming state of ill health.
Surely, the link is clear and irrefutable. This is no pseudo-study pretending that autism only existed after Tylenol and acetaminophens were created.
It’s a matter of national health, and it baffles me why there has been no meaningful state intervention at any time to put a stop to this malignant presence.
What, we can’t ban them from our shores? We can’t rock back and weigh up the dreadful cost and say, begone?
It’s one of my peeves. We won’t protect children at schools from exposure to junk food. We won’t set standards about sugar content, food colourings, preservatives, sodium. We let everything flow freely just to make money.
Look at our food import bills. Look at how much foreign exchange is being spent for unnecessary foodstuff. What happens to local farmers? Land use is arbitrarily altered to concrete up spaces where crops can flourish. Where is the idea of food sustainability?
I plant herbs in my backyard. I try other things too, often unsuccessfully because I am no match for the weather conditions. I cook, and I enjoy it to the point where I would say that like gardening, it is therapeutic and rewarding.
Photo: Jeremy Lovell.
I love experimenting. I can’t begin to tell you how many breadfruit dishes I have concocted while it is in season. I am keen to try two that I saw on the Eatahfood channel from Baidawi: Soy-glazed breadfruit and a curried version.
I really like the philosophy of the channel, its content and the way he presents.
A recent article on the website, which I just saw, written by Gabrielle Mollineau made the points I have been trying to make.
Noting that T&T imports 80 per cent of its food, she speaks of the vulnerability it creates in terms of “price shocks and supply chain disruptions.”
Aggressive marketing tactics, have “normalised the consumption” of salty, sugary products “at the expense of local fruits and vegetables… These subtle yet powerful forces create a system of dependency that make freedom of food choice a far cry from reality.”
I know everyone is not inclined to cook, and even less likely to go hard at using local ingredients, but when given the choice of imported or locally made, I will always opt for our regional fare. We owe that much to protect our badly nourished generation.
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Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
