A Trini mix – CurryLau!

By Lara Pickford-Gordon

snrwriter.camsel@catholictt.org

Pre-Covid, I bought a dish called ‘CurryLau’ at the La Petite Fleur Tea Shop, O Connor Street, Woodbrook. The fusion of curry and pelau left an impression on my tastebuds. It was prepared by chef Bernadette Burke and is one of her most popular dishes, offered twice a year.

In an interview with The Catholic News Burke said, “it represents the Africanness in me, from the whole methodology of making a pelau which is the African version of combining rice, peas and a meat and making a one pot and my love for curry and my love for blending my own curry spices. To me that’s the epitome of the diversity of our pluralistic society”.

She noted that the meats used: cow heel and oxtail, which were cuts of meat discarded to the enslaved were now regarded as “high end” and “exotic”, and today are costly.

Burke said she grew up in the restaurant industry; her mother, Comlan was a “classically trained” Asian chef with her own restaurant. Burke was the eldest of three children and the only girl.

“From the age of nine, I have been involved in the Asian kitchen, Asian cooking. She taught me knife skills. And as I grew into my teenage years, she taught me the specifics of spice blends, unique spice blends, her way. That is where I am most gifted, which different spices can blend,” she said.

Local and ancestral influences

Burke learned about cooking curry in the late 1970s. Her family lived in an area in San Fernando where the neighbours were of East Indian descent. She befriended another teen, the eldest daughter in a family, who was taken out of school in Standard Three and was responsible for cooking and cleaning in the household.

Burke said, “I really liked her as a friend…she cooked a mean curry, so I would go home by her on evenings and every time you go there, it’s country people, you get food. I just love curry, so we traded, I taught her how to read, without her dad knowing, and she taught me how to cook”. Burke also learned how to prepare sada, dhalpuri and paratha.

She said, “I gradually improved on how to mix my curries as well, but she was the foundation for me to learn East Indian cooking and that’s how I have this knack for curry, too”.

Burke is of mixed descent and subsequent to 25 years in the banking and finance sector, did missionary work in East Africa and Brazil. Her race aroused curiosity.

She said, “For them, it’s difficult to identify ‘how are you mixed? what makes you fair, you have curly hair, you have rhythm’. It was always a question, especially in Africa”.

Describing her ancestry, she said her maternal grandfather was from China, he came as an indentured labourer after the abolition of slavery. She said: “…on the way from China, the boat passed through Venezuela, and they picked up Venezuelans, and that’s how he met my grandmother”.

She said her father’s ancestry was a result of the slave trade. “And Irish descent from Carriacou. So, the Irish who came to Barbados and the Grenadines and so as indentured labourers as well…they were the low class that were exported to the Caribbean… to provide labour for the canefields,” she commented.

Pelau to CurryLau

Burke cooked pelau at home but it is not “a favourite”. She beams talking of how she is addicted to curry and can eat it weekly. “In order to fulfil my own flavours and my own palate and my children’s, I started cooking curry pelau. I call it CurryLau. So I started it off with curry chicken, pigeon peas and I will add my own spices,” Burke said.

She added: “I created my own curry blend. Again, learning how to mix my own spices. I have my own curry blend, and I cook CurryLau for my own family for the past 35 years or more”.

Burke pursued courses in pastry making, pastry lamination, cakes and breads at the Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute (TTHTI), completing her training in 2014. Four years later, she opened La Petit Fleur, named in honour of St Thérèse of Lisieux. The tea shop grew in popularity but as renovations were being done, Covid-19 arrived and forced its closure.

Burke changed her business model in 2022 to a pop-up kitchen/personal chef—Cousoumeh w Chef Bernadette. She utilises Facebook/Instagram to highlight her menus for online orders. She pondered takeaway meals that would pique interest, attract customers and be different, “in a time of a shutdown”.

She stated, “One of the meals I offered was CurryLau. I chose to do it with robust meats like oxtail and cowheel and pigtail all blended in together, and people came from Couva, Chaguanas and south to purchase CurryLau and that’s how it started”.

Burke continues her quest for flavours to “tantalise the palate of my clients and keep them interested in the wonderful flavors out there”.

She believes her gift and creativity is in using spices but she does not take the credit saying, “I ask the Holy Spirit to gift me in my creative skills. It’s an ongoing prayer that I have with the Holy Spirit”.