A brief Introduction

So this is officially my first post. I am excited to join the food blog world and to be able to contribute by sharing authentic Guyanese Dishes.

So a brief introduction. I am ## years old and while I've lived in Atlanta, Georgia for the past 19 years, I was born and raised (partially) in Guyana, left there when I was 11 (You do the math). In our early teens, my sister and I were under the influence of our peers (yep, I'm blaming them, it wasnt me!) and were 'acting up', so my mom (the greatest law enforcer known to man) politely deported our behinds back to Guyana for our dad to 'deal wid our case' for a brief time. Well at first we were bitter, but what an awesome experience it turned out to be. We attended North Georgetown Secondary for one school year, made a ton of new friends and learned more about our history and culture that we had cared about before or were just too young to appreciate. I remember we were very fortunate to be able to buy our lunch everyday at a little 'shop' across the street from the school. Man, in those days, $200 ( This is equivalent to US $2.00...$1US dollar is = to $200 GT dollars) for lunch would go a long way. We could get dhal puri with sour and a sweet drink for $160. Tek another twenty dollar for a bag of channa and your last twenty dollar for 2 sugar cakes and you'd be good until dinner that evening.

Everytime we prepare to visit Guyana, we have these long conversations about what and how much we are going to eat and 'get we belly full.' We know that once we get there, there are so many dishes, appetizers, pastries and sweets that we will want to have. Guyanese food is best described as full of robust flavour with herbs and spices to tingle your tastebuds. Guyana is an undeveloped country so many people have their own gardens where they grow their herbs, provisions and vegetables. In addition, while its not as common today, while growing up, just about everybody raised their own chicken and if you were lucky enough, Turkey and other livestock. Fruits trees are plentiful in Guyana and you can find an assortment of exotic tropical fruits in many yards here. Anything from Coconut, Mango, Papaya, Guava, Cherry, Sour Sop, Gooseberry and much much more. I remember shanking the mango tree for the ripe mango to fall on the ground or begging a boy cousin to climb to the top of the tree to pick a few for me.

Oh my, I get so excited and my eyes just light up when thinking about the fruits in Guyana, from stinking toe, to mami, to whitey and orara, monkey apple, fat poke, passion fruit....Guyana has some of the best damn fruits I have ever tasted. Guyanese people were also very creative, using what little they had to create so much more. Mom told me a story the other day about when she was a young girl going to school and times were hard. Well one day, she had to go home for lunch and knew that granny didnt have any food to cook, but she went home anyway. Granny had prepared a few dumplings in coconut milk and while it didnt look like anythin intriguing, mom said this concation was soooooo damn good and it filled her up. It was one of the best lunches she's ever had growing up.

Well I wont babble on and on, let's get to the recipes shall we!