Food - shopping and cooking

21.12.12

I thought you might like some information about everyday life here in Guyana so today I am going to write about food! 

We live in a village about an hour’s drive from the capital city of Georgetown.  In our village, about a mile’s walk away from our house there is a small market and a general foodstore.  The market sells fresh fruit and apparently on Saturdays there is a bigger market where you can buy fresh vegetables.  The food store only really sells dried and tinned foods so I can’t get things like fresh juice, butter, meat, eggs etc there.   The supermarkets in Georgetown are bigger and have more variety and on our visit there last week I found I can buy things like bacon, eggs, cheddar, Philly, fresh juice, limited meat and fresh fruit and veg.  Locally produced food is fairly cheap but imports are very expensive.  For example we paid £5 for a box of Frosties and £3 for a small jar of Marmite!

We last went to the city supermarket last Thursday and can’t really go there again until we get a car so we are having to eat what we can from the village market and store.

At the house the cooker is a small Calor gas oven with one shelf and some hotplates so it is like camping cooking!  It means we can still cook even in the many power cuts.  We also have a microwave which is great when the power is on and a toaster.  As for equipment we have a few pans and utensils but I need to get some more equipment once we get a car and can get to the city…we need things like oven gloves, a measuring jug, knives, colander, baking tins, scales or cups etc but in time we will get these items.

So because of all these factors our meals since being here have been pretty basic and not very exciting!  Whereas in the UK I would choose a recipe then get the ingredients to make it, here I have to see what we can get then find something to do with it that is edible!!  Also because we can’t freeze anything, we have to eat up any left overs and have to eat fresh stuff fairly quickly. 

Here are some of the things we have eaten so far…we have cereal for breakfast and tea (with long life milk) and some fruit.  We did have some juice last week but it’s run out now!  We have been eating Ritz crackers and marmite for lunch or scrambled eggs when we can get eggs.  For our evening meals I have so far made, vegetable soup, a kind of risotto with canned sweetcorn and onions, fried egg sandwiches, bacon with eggs and tomatoes, spaghetti carbonara and I managed to get some chicken last week so roasted it but it was a bit tough!  I bought some mince last week and put it in our freezer and when I came to get it out to use it realised the freezer doesn’t work so it had gone off.  A sad waste.  Now I wish I’d brought some tins of mince, stewed beef and chunky chicken from M&S! 

It has been a salutary thought that this time last year I had two fridges and freezers full of food and drink for Christmas, plus cupboards full of tins, packets, snacks and goodies and this year all we have in the house are a few tins and packets!   I think this might be the first Christmas I won’t have put on weight so that can’t be a bad thing!  As I write we are in Georgetown hoping to get a hire car to tide us over until we get our own car and if we can get a car we can buy some food in time for Christmas - we pray this may come to pass today!