Guyana
Cassareep-dark pepperpot, Saturday cook-up rice, and roti-and-curry — South America's Caribbean kitchen.
Guyana sits on South America's shoulder but eats Caribbean, and its table is one of the region's most layered — Afro, Indo, Amerindian, Chinese and Portuguese on one menu. The national dish is pepperpot, a dark, slow-cooked meat stew preserved and perfumed by cassareep, a bitter-cassava reduction the Amerindians perfected long before Europeans arrived; it reheats for days over the Christmas season. Saturday means cook-up rice, a one-pot of rice and beans simmered in coconut milk with salt beef or pig tail.
The arrival of nearly a quarter-million indentured Indians from 1838 made curry, dhal puri and roti everyday national food rather than something set apart. Georgetown's Stabroek and Bourda markets pile up provisions, fish and street snacks, and roadside stalls fry pholourie split-pea balls with a tamarind sour. Wash it down with Banks beer or an award-winning El Dorado rum.
- Pepperpot (cassareep meat stew)
- Cook-up rice (rice and beans in coconut)
- Roti and curry
- Dhal puri (split-pea roti)
- Metemgee (provisions in coconut milk)
- Pholourie (fried split-pea balls)
- El Dorado rum
