Roti

Roti is a round, unleavened flatbread that originated on the Indian subcontinent, made from finely ground whole wheat flour called atta mixed with water and cooked on a flat griddle, and it remains a staple accompaniment to meals across South Asia. Indentured laborers from India carried roti with them to the Caribbean in the nineteenth century, and it became rooted in the food culture of islands with large Indo-Caribbean populations, especially Trinidad and Tobago. In the mid-1940s, Sackina Karamath, who went on to found the Hummingbird Roti Shop in San Fernando, Trinidad, is credited with wrapping curried meat, potato and vegetable fillings inside a roti skin to create the portable, street-food style of roti eaten across the Caribbean today. This Caribbean roti, sold as a folded or rolled wrap filled with curry, is now a distinct dish in its own right built on the same bread that Indian communities had brought to the region generations earlier.