This Week’s Tiffin

Cassava and Guyanese Dumplings with Tomato Stew

Cassava boiled until tender then sautéed with onions, and spices, a squeeze of lime juice – made to be dipped in a rich tomato stew.

Served with Guyanese dumplings – a simple flour dumpling(duff) boiled briefly in water, then pan-fried until golden, fluffy inside with a crispy exterior, perfect for soaking up stews. (GF alt available)

Sweet Onion Chutney

Bright, caramel-sweet, and a little sharp — something to flatter the tastebuds and lifts the meal to another level.

Winter Greens

Charred just enough to soften it a bit, tossed with citrus and a whisper of heat.

Mango Coconut Pudding

A soft, tropical warmth folded into winter — bright mango layered with coconut cream and spice.

The Story

When I was very small, my mother would sometimes take me to the market on the rare weeks she could afford a little extra. It wasn’t a market the way people imagine them here — it was an entire street transformed, twice a week, into a world of noise and color and life.

Hawkers spread burlap sacks on the ground and laid out whatever they had: kitchen wares, fish glistening in the sun, hot snacks wrapped in brown paper, even the little open fireplaces I grew up watching my family cook on back then. And somewhere in the middle of it all was the provision man.

He sat behind mountains of cassava, eddoes, yams, and plantains, all piled high on his burlap sack. You never just bought anything from him — shopping was a negotiation.

“How much fuh de cassava?”
“Three dollar a pound.”
“Da too much, man. Yuh ras crazy.”

They would go back and forth like that until, he’d pretend to be frustrated, and throw in a handful of eddoes. My mother would stew her teeth, hand over the three dollars, and walk away muttering to herself.

Eventually, half to me and half to the air, she’d say, “Abhi guh mek boil and fry today… wid fry okra.”

Okra — the one thing that showed up in nearly every meal because it was the thing that grew like weed in our backyard.
But every once in a while, if tomatoes were plentiful, she would make a simple tomato stew that tasted like heaven.

These were the foods of poor people’s kitchens — humble, honest, and now remembered in ways I understand and embrace.

Memory

Cassava has fed entire nations; once given as “provision” in the hard days of empire, it remains a root that remembers drought, migration, and resilience.

Spice Lore

In Guyanese kitchens, pepper is not just seasoning — it is the backbone.

The instant it hits hot oil, the whole room opens like a portal, carrying heat, memory, and hunger.

Notes from the Kitchen

If you ever cook cassava (and you probably won’t), remember: it goes from hard to perfect in one heartbeat. Don’t turn your back on it.

Some foods feed the body. Others remind us where we come from.