Bittersweet Spirits: Transnational Food Memory and the Persistent Production of Non-Mainstream Alcohol in Trinidad

Whether we perceive the process of food leaving its mark on our culture as a function of genetic or collective memory, or a combination, informs the ways we interrogate the continued existence of these foods and their practices across time and landscapes. Within the postcolonial context, the process of re-embodiment is an inherently bittersweet one in that it comes as a consequence of loss and rupture and is motivated by a desire to be remade. Prior to colonialism, the production of alcohol was a profound aspect of the lives of the many peoples of West and West-Central Africa. Descendants of trafficked Africans in Trinidad reproduced this practice of distilling non-mainstream alcohol in the form of an overproof spirit called babash. The skilful and sustained brewing of this spirit for over two hundred years was directly possible due to the veritable isolation in which the Merikins existed for a large part of their history in Trinidad. The geographic location of the Merikins “produced an optimum environment,” where, in the “absence of constant oversight, they were able to forge the continuance of indigenous practices and cultural traditions. Enabling them to construct a new identity as a result and in spite of tragic conditions (Fuller 2015, 2). The drive to remake oneself within a new context while retaining as much as possible of the elements of the identity of the old context is constant in displaced persons. It requires the reshaping of substitutes, inputting these into lingering structures, to facilitate the recreation of customs in a new world. To that end, traces of old forms are and always will be innately located within the new.