Shas­tri Boodan

GML Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

For Shaz­ara Mo­hammed, known to thou­sands of so­cial me­dia fol­low­ers as Chef Shaz, the love af­fair with food be­gan long be­fore she start­ed shar­ing recipes on­line.

It be­gan in the kitchen of her grand­moth­er in Bar­rack­pore, where, as a child, Mo­hammed learned a les­son that has re­mained with her through­out her culi­nary jour­ney: what­ev­er you do in the kitchen, do it prop­er­ly.

To­day, that phi­los­o­phy is at the heart of her ap­proach to cook­ing, bak­ing and shar­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s culi­nary her­itage on­line.

Mo­hammed was born in Bar­rack­pore and at­tend­ed The Lengua Is­lamia TIA Pri­ma­ry School, where her fa­ther was a teacher. She lat­er at­tend­ed St Stephen’s Col­lege in Princes Town.

She mar­ried at 20 and re­mained in the Bar­rack­pore area, tak­ing on a va­ri­ety of jobs be­fore even­tu­al­ly en­ter­ing the teach­ing ser­vice.

But her fas­ci­na­tion with food had start­ed much ear­li­er.

“As an on­ly child I was ba­si­cal­ly left to my own de­vices once I was in the house,” she re­called.

Her ma­ter­nal aunt, Fa­ri­na Khan, who is now de­ceased, played an im­por­tant role in nur­tur­ing that in­ter­est. A gift of a chil­dren’s cook­book in­tro­duced Mo­hammed to the world of cook­ing and bak­ing.

She still car­ries vivid mem­o­ries of her aunt’s cook­ing, in­clud­ing her mac­a­roni pie made with el­bow pas­ta in­stead of tra­di­tion­al mac­a­roni, roast­ed lamb and her fa­mous pineap­ple up­side-down cake.

“Fond mem­o­ries of her meals flut­ter across my mind when I’m in the kitchen,” Mo­hammed said.

How­ev­er, it was her ma­ter­nal grand­moth­er who left per­haps the deep­est culi­nary im­pres­sion.

Mo­hammed re­mem­bers spend­ing time with her grand­moth­er in the kitchen while her cousins were out­side play­ing.

One par­tic­u­lar mem­o­ry re­mains es­pe­cial­ly vivid.

Her grand­moth­er was prepar­ing baked beef. She pulled the tray part­ly out of the oven, cut the pieces to the same size and care­ful­ly showed Mo­hammed how to turn each piece and coat it with sauce.

“One by one, she said, ‘what­ev­er you do in the kitchen, do it prop­er­ly’,” Mo­hammed re­called.

“Words I live by.”

Her culi­nary ed­u­ca­tion con­tin­ued through tele­vi­sion. She watched pro­grammes such as Yan Can Cook and Mad­hur Jaf­frey’s Far East­ern Cook­ery, which aired on TTT.

Lat­er, An­tho­ny Bour­dain’s No Reser­va­tions be­came one of her favourites.

“An­tho­ny Bour­dain said his love of food was born in France with an oys­ter he tast­ed. Mine was a tray of baked beef in my grand­moth­er’s kitchen,” she said.

She al­so counts Ina Garten, known as the Bare­foot Con­tes­sa, and Nigel­la Law­son among her biggest in­spi­ra­tions.

The birth of Chef Shaz

Mo­hammed’s tran­si­tion from home cook to so­cial me­dia food per­son­al­i­ty hap­pened al­most by ac­ci­dent.

She joined Face­book in 2007 while com­plet­ing her BA in Span­ish at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI).

At the time, she be­gan post­ing pho­tographs of her Sun­day lunch­es as a way of break­ing the mo­not­o­ny of work and study­ing.

Her friends quick­ly be­came in­ter­est­ed.

They want­ed to know how she man­aged to pre­pare home­made meals while teach­ing full-time and com­plet­ing her de­gree.

When her daugh­ter was born the fol­low­ing year, their cu­rios­i­ty grew.

Peo­ple won­dered how she was man­ag­ing moth­er­hood, teach­ing, study­ing and run­ning a house­hold while still find­ing time to cook.

So­cial me­dia was still in its in­fan­cy, and Mo­hammed found her­self nat­u­ral­ly grav­i­tat­ing to­wards food.

“I was a home­body with many (too many) hob­bies and felt talk­ing about food, cook­ing and bak­ing was my forte,” she said.

Friends even­tu­al­ly be­gan ask­ing her to share her recipes.

“So, I be­gan al­most dai­ly, much to the an­noy­ance of some of my friends, as they said as soon as they opened Face­book, there I was,” she re­called with a laugh.

One friend sug­gest­ed that she cre­ate a sep­a­rate page ded­i­cat­ed to her food con­tent.

And Chef Shaz was born.

The page start­ed with just 11 fol­low­ers on its first day but even­tu­al­ly grew to about 45,000.

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed’s so­cial me­dia suc­cess was not with­out set­backs.

Her page was hacked, re­sult­ing in her los­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive con­trol. Af­ter a lengthy bat­tle with Meta, the page was even­tu­al­ly tak­en down.

“Such is life in so­cial me­dia, it gives and it takes,” she said.

She re­turned to post­ing on her main, ver­i­fied Face­book page.

Cook­ing with­out a

culi­nary de­gree

De­spite her rep­u­ta­tion as an ac­com­plished cook, Mo­hammed has no for­mal pro­fes­sion­al train­ing in food and nu­tri­tion be­yond study­ing the sub­ject from Forms One to Three.

Her re­al ed­u­ca­tion, she said, came from years of ex­per­i­men­ta­tion in the kitchen.

“Life, the ac­tu­al kitchen and prac­tice are for­mal train­ing,” she said.

For the most part, her train­ing was based on tri­al and er­ror.

She con­sid­ers tele­vi­sion and lat­er YouTube to have been her uni­ver­si­ties, while test­ing recipes, fail­ing, try­ing again and even­tu­al­ly suc­ceed­ing were her prac­ti­cal ex­am­i­na­tions.

“My ac­co­lades were filled bel­lies and con­tent­ed faces,” she said.

Her friends be­came her un­of­fi­cial stu­dents—and, some­times un­know­ing­ly, her “guinea pigs”.

“They were my tu­tors and my friends who were know­ing and un­know­ing­ly my guinea pigs, bless their hearts,” she said.

A taste of Trinidad

As a Span­ish teacher, Mo­hammed was ex­posed to dif­fer­ent cul­tures and cuisines.

That in­flu­ence even­tu­al­ly found its way in­to her kitchen as she ex­per­i­ment­ed with His­pan­ic dish­es.

She in­tro­duced her fol­low­ers and friends to foods such as em­panadas and tor­tillas, help­ing some Trinida­di­ans over­come their re­luc­tance to try un­fa­mil­iar cuisines.

But de­spite her will­ing­ness to ex­per­i­ment, it is lo­cal food that con­tin­ues to gen­er­ate the great­est re­sponse on­line.

Mo­hammed said there has been a shift in what fol­low­ers want from her.

Ini­tial­ly, they main­ly re­quest­ed recipes. Now many want voice-over videos or sim­ply want to see her face as she pre­pares food.

And sur­pris­ing­ly, it is of­ten the sim­plest dish­es that at­tract the most at­ten­tion.

“Sa­da roti, pelau and cur­ried chick­en,” she said.

Fol­low­ers, she not­ed, are gen­er­al­ly more in­ter­est­ed in see­ing fa­mil­iar dish­es they love rather than foods that fall out­side their culi­nary com­fort zone.

Her own favourites in­clude a mix­ture of Cre­ole and East In­di­an dish­es—dumplings, callaloo, pelau, roast fish, cur­ried meats, dhal and “any­thing that you can put salt fish in.”

Pre­serv­ing the lo­cal kitchen

With few­er than ten years re­main­ing in the teach­ing ser­vice, Mo­hammed al­ready has plans for the next chap­ter of her life.

Af­ter re­tire­ment, she in­tends to de­vote more time to pre­serv­ing and pro­mot­ing lo­cal cui­sine.

She ac­cepts that glob­al­i­sa­tion can­not be stopped and that Trinidad and To­ba­go has em­braced foods from around the world.

But she be­lieves it is equal­ly im­por­tant to en­sure that the coun­try’s own culi­nary tra­di­tions are not lost.

“I will strive to keep what we have cre­at­ed alive,” she said.

Her strat­e­gy is sim­ple - con­tin­ue cre­at­ing and doc­u­ment­ing the dish­es that Trinidad and To­ba­go loves.

She be­lieves so­cial me­dia can be­come a culi­nary archive for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

“What­ev­er is post­ed on­line will live in in­famy. I plan to use that to my ad­van­tage,” she said.

She imag­ines that years from now, a young bride could turn to her Face­book or Tik­Tok page to learn how to make a prop­er sa­da roti.

“Many have al­ready,” she added.

Con­ve­nience ver­sus tra­di­tion

For Mo­hammed, one of the biggest threats fac­ing lo­cal cui­sine is not a lack of ap­pre­ci­a­tion but a lack of time.

Fast food and con­ve­nience foods have be­come in­creas­ing­ly at­trac­tive as fam­i­lies strug­gle to bal­ance work, house­hold re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and ris­ing liv­ing costs.

“A fam­i­ly must have two in­comes to sur­vive in this econ­o­my and in many house­holds, par­ents work,” she said.

As a re­sult, meals that can be pre­pared quick­ly of­ten take prece­dence over tra­di­tion­al dish­es that re­quire fresh in­gre­di­ents, lengthy prepa­ra­tion and pa­tience.

“Par­ents are tired and chil­dren are hun­gry. There­fore, meals are bought and meals that are bought are not nec­es­sar­i­ly lo­cal cui­sine,” she said.

Mo­hammed wor­ries that the taste for tra­di­tion­al foods could grad­u­al­ly dis­ap­pear if chil­dren are not ex­posed to them at home.

“Our lo­cal cui­sine needs fresh in­gre­di­ents, some­times long or elab­o­rate cook­ing process­es, time and love,” she said.

She be­lieves tra­di­tion­al foods should not be re­served for vis­its to grand­moth­er’s house or spe­cial oc­ca­sions such as Christ­mas.

Par­ents, she said, need to in­tro­duce their chil­dren to lo­cal dish­es from a young age.

“What they are giv­en is what they will eat and ask for,” she said.

No time for class­es - yet

Mo­hammed has been re­peat­ed­ly asked to con­duct cook­ing class­es, but bal­anc­ing teach­ing, fam­i­ly and per­son­al com­mit­ments has made that dif­fi­cult.

For now, she de­votes much of her free time to self-care, par­tic­u­lar­ly go­ing to the gym, as well as her fam­i­ly and stu­dents.

How­ev­er, she has long-term plans to con­vert space at her home in­to an in­dus­tri­al kitchen, which could even­tu­al­ly al­low her to ex­pand her culi­nary ac­tiv­i­ties.

She has al­so helped the Food and Nu­tri­tion teacher at her school and has pre­vi­ous­ly taught the ba­sics of cake-mak­ing and In­di­an del­i­ca­cies.

“It was a wel­come break from verbs and nouns, I must say,” she joked.

For now, Chef Shaz con­tin­ues to cook, ex­per­i­ment and share.

And with every pho­to­graph, recipe and video, she is do­ing more than feed­ing her fol­low­ers.

She is help­ing pre­serve a piece of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s culi­nary iden­ti­ty - one sa­da roti, pelau, cur­ry and salt-fish dish at a time.