Have you had your bread and rice today?

While I have grown to like the food from Suriname, there is one thing I CANNOT get used to. That is waking up to the smell of the day’s hot meal being cooked at 7 A.M. As far as I’m concerned the only cooking smells I enjoy at that time of day is coffee brewing and bacon frying. I definitely DO NOT like waking up to the smell of garlic and hot peppers frying with fish or whatever meat will be the main part of the day’s meal. I’ve gotten used to the fact that the meal is cooked first thing in the morning and left to sit on the stove all day to be eaten whenever you are hungry, but I hate the smell of it cooking when I wake up in the morning. It’s just overwhelming to smell garlic and hot peppers frying in oil on the stove.

The other mainstays are rice and bread. They aren’t kidding here when they ask have you had your bread and rice today. They are serious, it’s generally expected that you’ll eat bread and rice EVERY day. I generally have bread for breakfast and lunch and a hot meal at night that almost always includes rice. And when a Surinamer hasn’t had their rice, they notice it and at the end of the day will say, oh, I didn’t eat any rice today. I find this so funny because the other day I had potatoes for dinner (SHOCK!) and I found myself thinking, hey, I didn’t have any rice today.

One important thing to note when cooking and eating in Paramaribo, the capital city of Suriname. The water here is potable. I drink the water straight from the tap. So cooking and eating out is no problem.

Here are some photos of the foods I eat regularly here in Suriname.

Rice with fish and veggies

Nasi

Rice with beef and veggies

Saoto Soup (a Javanese dish that I generally eat minus the chicken feet or baby fingers as I like to call them)

Ooh, this was a new one. It’s also Javanese. It’s called Tahoe-lonton. It has shredded chicken, cubes of tofu and sticky rice (of course), bean sprouts and shredded cabbage and it’s topped with a hot pepper sauce. It was delicious.

Many times I've snacked on these tasty little tidbits. I don't know what they are called. They are Javanese. They are made of rice and they are sort of sweet.

Each culture here has its own cuisine. Here’s a breakdown of the main dishes by ethnic group that I’ve had:

Javanese
Saoto soup: A chicken based soup (cooked with chicken feet) that you add shredded chicken, bean sprouts, shredded fried potatoes, finely chopped fried onions and garlic, a boiled egg and rice or noodles to. You put a layer of each in your bowl and then pour the soup over top.

Bami: A spaghetti type noodle fried in oil eaten with a hot pepper mixture called sambal.

Nasi: Nasi is basically the Indonesian equivalent of Chinese Fried Rice. The spices are different of course but everything else is pretty much the same. Generally here Nasi is only made with chicken, no shrimp, beef or other kind of meat.

Loempia: This is the Indonesian version of an eggroll, but it is bigger and filled with finely chopped beans (called cowsaband), bean sprouts and meat. Eaten with sweet and sour sauce yum!

Sate: A wooden stick with chicken, beef, or shrimp on it eaten with a spicy peanut sauce. (My mom’s sate and peanut sauce is still the best I’ve had in the ENTIRE world…and I’ve now tried sate on four Continents…beat that!)

East Indian Cuisine
Roti: Roti here is a little different than the Caribbean version. Here you get a large, round flat bread dough which you tear into pieces and use to eat a mixture of curried chicken, duck or lamb (one the bone of course), potatoes, and yard-long beans (cowsaband). You eat with your hands, it’s messy, but delicious!

Traditional Suriname Dishes
Pastei: This is kind of like chicken-pot-pie. There is dough on the bottom of the casserole. The filling is shredded chicken (yay, no bones), carrots, peas, crushed tomatoes and spices. Top it with dough and then bake it in the oven.

Pom: Pom is a root that is grated into a mush and mixed into a casserole with chicken and baked in the oven. It is best eaten with rice but you can eat it on its own too. The best Pom I’ve had in Suriname is from this little stand by the river called Uncle Re’s. No other has compared.

Bruine bonen (or brown beans): Bruine bonen is kind of like a stew. You put the beans in a pot, add sausage, chicken and salt beef and let it cook all day. You eat it over rice or as a soup.

Pinda soep (or peanut soup): A soup with a base of crushed peanuts to which salt beef and chicken is added. Plantain dumplings are also often added. The soup is usually eaten over rice (of course), but you can eat it without the rice too.

Cassava: Cassava is like a potato. Here you can have cassava chips, cassava soup or you can get pieces of it fried and topped with veggies and salted fish. I’m not a fan of that dish, but I do like fried cassava eaten plain.

So there you go, there’s a quick rundown of some of the foods of Suriname. Are you hungry?