The distinct bittersweet fragrance accented with smoky notes, select spices, crisp bay leaves and blazing hot peppers will waft through the homes of Guyanese, as we prepare to celebrate Christmas with our most famous national dish. Each dip into that dark, delicious sauce that deepens with flavour daily, is due to a living cuisine, indigenous and ancient in origin.
Early historical references speak of “casaripe” being “a preservative made from the juice of the cassava, boiled and flavoured with red pepper.” A note from 1825, cited by the Guyanese-born linguist Richard Allsopp in his ‘Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage,” notes, “(casareep) reduces all flesh to one flavour its own…and has antiseptic qualities which keep meat boiled in it good for a long time. The result is …the far-famed pepperpot which, first made by the Indians (indigenous peoples), all settlers in the West Indies have now learned to make and like.”
