SAN FERNANDO, Trinidad and Tobago — It is, at a glance, simple and unremarkable: a circle of flatbread as flaccid as a cotton cloth, with a texture not quite as doughy as pita bread, yet fluffier than a tortilla.

To a diner unfamiliar with the dish, it may look like an accessory, just a vehicle to get hearty helpings of meat and vegetables into the mouth. But roti, a staple of this West Indian island nation’s cuisine, is anything but a culinary afterthought. It is so ingrained in the culture here that the term often refers to the bread combined with its accompaniments, typically a yellow curry stew of meat, potatoes and chickpeas.

When done right, this flatbread is silky and buttery and melts on the tongue in a puddle of succulent flavors. Preparing it, though, requires a lifetime of study.

Roti arrived on the island of Trinidad around the time slavery was abolished in the late 1830s, with indentured servants from India, where the unleavened flatbread has been popular for many centuries. Dhal puri, paratha and sada are the most readily available styles of roti in Trinidad.

 

Locals call their brand of paratha “buss up shut,” which gets its name from the Trini pronunciation of the phrase “busted-up shirt,” a reference to what the dish looks like. Unlike traditional paratha in India, buss up shut is broken into pieces, and diners typically pick up the pieces with their hands and use them as utensils to scoop the curry. Sada is comparable to naan (minus the leavening) and usually eaten at breakfast with a choka, which is roasted and ground vegetables or fish.

Dhal puri is a roti stuffed with ground split peas. It’s large, round and flat, and it’s often wrapped around curry so it can be eaten like a sandwich. While dhal puri is cooked on a griddle, the puri in India is deep-fried and smaller than the Trinidadian iteration, said Chitrita Banerji, the author of “Eating India: An Odyssey Into the Food and Culture of the Land of Spices.” The portability of a dhal puri (with curry inside) makes it a popular grab-and-go street food and lunch option.

Rostan Amin, 84, a Muslim Trinidadian whose ancestors are from India, began his roti empire with a grocery store in San Fernando in the 1960s. His roti appealed to the workers at a nearby oil refinery. The grocery store eventually closed, but the restaurant business has expanded. There are now 10 branches throughout the country.

The Amin family’s restaurant looks much like any roti shop you may see here or around the globe, from Brooklyn to Toronto. It is sparse, with a counter and a few wooden tables for those who want to stick around to eat.

Mr. Amin’s son, Haseeb Amin, 57, who goes by Pope, and one of his grandsons, Kaleem Amin, 33, now run the operation, but the patriarch still puts in time — he lives above the flagship restaurant and regularly wakes up early to knead the dough.

 

Kaleem Amin said he can tell his grandfather’s work, as opposed to that of the staff. “Sometimes, if I come in the morning, I would know the difference if my grandfather kneaded the flour, because when he kneads the flour, you don’t even need to chew the roti,” he said. “It literally melts in your mouth.”

How, exactly, does the elder Amin accomplish such a perfect knead?

The answer is what makes preparing the perfect roti so difficult for home cooks: experience.

 

“Unless you’ve grown up in the kind of community where somebody in your family was teaching you to do it since you were 7, it’s going to be hard,” said Anu Lakhan, a food writer in Trinidad.

Making roti is as much about eyeballing as measuring, tradition as instruction. Trinidadians see it as an art form. It’s time consuming, and challenging, “because it was never documented in a manner in which people can duplicate it easily,” said Chris De La Rosa, the founder of CaribbeanPot.com.

Those new to roti-making are often surprised by how difficult it is, as cookbook instructions are straightforward and ingredients are few: flour, water, salt, baking powder and oil as its base, with seasonings and additions, depending on the style.

 

Mr. De La Rosa’s cooking website supplements recipes with videos to help illustrate what the prose cannot. A native of Trinidad, Mr. De La Rosa now lives in Hamilton, Ontario. His site started as a way to teach his daughters how to prepare some of his favorite Caribbean dishes.

Portioning ingredients correctly is an important first step in achieving the right roti texture. The slightest ratio imbalance could throw off the roti. What you want is a very soft dough, Kaleem Amin said, but not so soft that it breaks apart. His father, Pope Amin, said that when mixing the dough, you know it is ready when you can stick your finger in it and your finger comes out clean.

 

With dhal puri, the well-seasoned split-pea filling, which provides the flavor, is just as important as supple dough.