14 days of Divali recipes: Pepper roti

SPONSORED BY NFM

The Divali Nagar has been one of the most prominent and well-loved features of the modern TT cultural landscape for over three decades, and like most other places of festivity in the country, it is also a place where one goes to eat. One of the most popular staples at the Nagar is pepper roti – a soft paratha roti chock full of hot peppers as well as a host of delicious condiments and fillings. Yet, for all of its seemingly timeless popularity, pepper roti is actually a fairly recent arrival to the menu of mainstream Indo-Trinidadian dishes.

Pepper roti as we know it today came into existence as a by-product of the left-over ingredients used in the preparations for Hindu weddings. Though there were always exceptions, the cooking of the roti on the night before the wedding (also known as the cooking night) was usually left in the hands of the men of the family.

That the men were in charge of the roti preparation had much to do with the physical strength needed to handle the massive tawas and the huge rotis – often measuring several feet long – that needed to be prepared.

As the night would draw to an end and the labour-intensive cooking would near completion, the men would often reward themselves by using the very last loyah, or roti dough ball, to make something for themselves to eat. It thus became custom for the chefs to paste this last roti with kutchela and then throw on some chopped peppers, creating a fiery and satisfying snack for the men to enjoy along with the celebratory drinks that were all but mandatory after a long day of cooking.

This spicy reward that they created for themselves is what has evolved into the pepper roti which is so loved today.