Last weekend I bought some yams and eddoes. While there are several dishes I could have made with them, I opted to make a Choka with each.
I chose to make Choka for 2 separate reasons – I remembered as a child, my aunt Betty making Yam Choka and always wanted to try it myself. And I saw in one of my social media feeds, on more than one occasion, Trinidadian Eddo Choka. Hmmm, I thought, this looks interesting.
My aunt Betty was creative and innovative in her use of local ingredients, and this might have been the case with the Yam Choka. However, Guyanese of a certain generation would remember a time when certain food items were banned. Therefore, in the absence of English potatoes, she may have simply used yams to make the Choka that evening for dinner, accompanied by roti and big cups of black tea sweetened with sugar and milk. I have no taste memory of the Choka she made but I do remember it being white with specks of red chopped wiri wiri peppers, and green onion/scallions.
