RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Look­ing for a dif­fer­ent way to spend the Di­vali hol­i­day? A get­away to the coun­try­side could of­fer the per­fect es­cape, with tra­di­tion­al fire­side cook­ing, mud oven bak­ing, fish­ing in near­by ponds and even a bull cart ride through the rolling hills of Bar­rack­pore.

At Rur­al De­lights, a small coun­try­side food and tourism busi­ness at Cun­jal South Trace, Bar­rack­pore, Rish­ma Lall­har­ry is invit­ing vis­i­tors to slow down and ex­pe­ri­ence a way of life root­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rur­al her­itage.

For Lall­har­ry, the ex­pe­ri­ence is al­so deeply per­son­al. The smell of burn­ing fire­wood, the crack­le of a fire­side and the taste of fresh­ly pre­pared food bring back mem­o­ries of her child­hood in rur­al Trinidad, where cook­ing was as much a part of fam­i­ly life as tend­ing the gar­den, rear­ing an­i­mals and fetch­ing wa­ter.

At just eight years old, she was al­ready help­ing her grand­moth­er, Naseer­an Khan, and aunt, fond­ly known as “Tan­ty Doo­doo”, pre­pare meals for an ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, learn­ing recipes and cook­ing meth­ods that have large­ly dis­ap­peared from many mod­ern kitchens.

Decades lat­er, those child­hood lessons have be­come the foun­da­tion of her busi­ness. Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Lall­har­ry said vis­i­tors can al­so choose their own menu, fish in the near­by ponds and take a ride on a bull cart through the un­du­lat­ing hills.

Start­ed in 2021 on an­ces­tral land in­her­it­ed from her late fa­ther, Jadoonath Harnar­ine, Lall­har­ry said the busi­ness of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to ex­pe­ri­ence a slow­er pace of life, away from the traf­fic, work sched­ules and de­mands of every­day liv­ing.

For Lall­har­ry, it is al­so a way of keep­ing alive the cook­ing tra­di­tions she learnt from gen­er­a­tions of women in her fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing her moth­er, Famee­da Harnar­ine.

“I was al­ways in the kitchen there prep­ping with them. There were a lot of peo­ple to cook for, a lot of work, so I was the one who was there,” she said.

She said her fam­i­ly main­tained a kitchen gar­den and reared chick­ens, bi­son, and goats. When mon­ey was tight and gro­ceries were not read­i­ly avail­able, they re­lied on what they could grow, gath­er or find.

“Be­cause of hard­ship, not hav­ing gro­ceries and mar­ket stuff, you’re quick to find things to cook. Like a green paw paw, you cook it. You hus­tle some bha­ji, you cook it. Just so that every fam­i­ly would have a meal. We al­so plant­ed cane and rice,” she re­called.

Her fa­ther al­so went in­to the for­est to for­age for food, while house­hold chores were part of the dai­ly rou­tine.

As the on­ly girl among five chil­dren, Lall­har­ry said she was ex­pect­ed to help with cook­ing and look af­ter her broth­ers- Bas­sant, Rishi, Robin and Ra­jesh. She al­so joined them in fish­ing, climb­ing trees and play­ing games.

Fetch­ing wa­ter, wash­ing clothes and do­ing dish­es were not al­ways en­joy­able tasks, but Lal­har­ry said she and her four broth­ers found ways to make them fun.

Re­call­ing her jour­ney, Lal­har­ry said the idea for the busi­ness came dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with friends, when she spoke about the dis­tinc­tive taste of food pre­pared in a small mud oven she had built.

“They want­ed to try it, and so my hus­band Sunil and I de­cid­ed to de­vel­op the idea by build­ing a mud oven and a fire­side cook­ing area,” she said.

Af­ter her first Valen­tine’s Day food pro­mo­tion in 2021, where sour­dough piz­za was a spe­cial­i­ty, Lal­har­ry said she de­cid­ed to take the ven­ture fur­ther.

“I was so swamped with or­ders. I was so tired. I had this phone go­ing off, mes­sages com­ing in. Peo­ple loved the food and they were ask­ing for the next vis­it, so it all start­ed with week­end book­ings,” she said.

Their sons, Joey and Jared, have al­so be­come in­volved in the fam­i­ly busi­ness, with younger son Jared serv­ing as a tour guide for vis­i­tors, Lal­har­ry ex­plained.

Lal­har­ry said her suc­cess prompt­ed her to help oth­er farm­ers in the area. She even­tu­al­ly joined as sec­re­tary of the Cun­jal Food Crop Farm­ers’ group, which has been ad­vo­cat­ing for im­proved fa­cil­i­ties and sup­port for agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­ers.

Lal­har­ry, who suf­fers from rheuma­toid arthri­tis, said Rur­al De­lights has al­lowed her to put her cook­ing skills to use while shar­ing an as­pect of Trinida­di­an rur­al life with oth­ers.

She said she en­joys see­ing fam­i­lies vis­it, par­tic­u­lar­ly chil­dren who get the chance to ex­plore the sur­round­ings rather than spend their time in­doors.

For adults, the ap­peal is of­ten the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sit down, en­joy a meal and spend time with loved ones with­out the usu­al dis­trac­tions.

“When our cus­tomers leave, it’s like they leave like fam­i­ly,” she said.

Lall­har­ry is ap­peal­ing for greater sup­port from the Min­istries of Tourism and Agri­cul­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly to im­prove the road and pro­vide ba­sic ameni­ties such as elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter.

She be­lieves small rur­al busi­ness­es can con­tribute to tourism while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for farm­ers and help­ing to pre­serve tra­di­tion­al food prac­tices.

“I am pro­vid­ing a ser­vice, and I am con­tribut­ing to the GDP,” she said.

For now, she is con­tent to con­tin­ue do­ing what she en­joys, prepar­ing food in the way she learnt as a child and wel­com­ing peo­ple who want to ex­pe­ri­ence some­thing dif­fer­ent.

The ex­pe­ri­ence, she said, is about more than eat­ing.

Vis­i­tors can sit around the fire­side, en­joy a cup of cof­fee, sam­ple food cooked in a mud oven and spend time in the coun­try­side.

She said those in­ter­est­ed in ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Rur­al De­lights can con­tact her at 290-1153 to arrange a vis­it.