Chester Cake

Chester Cake (Photo by Cynthia Nelson)

There is history, pain, survival, and ingenuity, baked and cooked into many dishes and foods around the world. Here in the Caribbean, we have dishes with that sort of background such as fresh pigeon peas and rice, Shine rice, Privilege (rice cooked with ochroes and salt fish), and Doved peas among others. Then there are those foods that have travelled that we have adapted and incorporated as part of the food scene of this corner of the world where many of our ancestors came, whether forced, fooled or in search of a better life and prosperity. Chester cake, also known as Gur cake, Gudge or Donkey’s Gudge, comes from very humble beginnings.