A new event hits the social calendars this year: the Pepperpot Festival, slated to be held in the month of November, will usher-in the Christmas season.
The festival was derived from a random dream by Andrea Bryan-Garner, a Guyanese food enthusiast with a passion for her culture and cuisine, and it is expected to see participants from all the regions across Guyana in a competition to decide the winner of ‘the best pepperpot in Guyana’, title.
Andrea told The Scene that this will be a first time opportunity to celebrate one of the country’s national dishes.
“So it came about after a dream,” she related. “I dreamt that I was at a pepperpot festival sampling pepperpot and that I had a pressure cooker in my hand. …When I woke up, I distinctively thought about the idea and said ‘you know, the pepperpot festival is a nice idea because it’s something that has never happened in Guyana before and it could be a celebration of one of our national dishes’.”
The competition will see pepperpot being made a few days before the event in various categories such as chicken, beef, pork and also vegetarian, since, as Andrea noted, “that’s the beauty of the dish, the taste gets better with time.”
She went on to explain that the participants will not only be judged by official judges within the food industry, but also by the public who will be able to sample their offerings.
“So my idea is to have different competitors and it would be like a taste-off, where they would bring a pot of pepperpot. We’re basically looking for persons who think that they are the best pepperpot cookers in Guyana… and then the public would be able to sample the various pepperpots along with official judges, who would determine the final winner,” she explained.
Andrea added that aside from the competition, there will be booths where vendors will have the opportunity to sell pepperpot-related ingredients and items. She mentioned, “cassava bread, cassareep and much more, and even Christmas related because it would be at the end of November… I would also like for the Tuma-pot dish to be featured as well since you know pepperpot has its origin as it relates to Tuma.”
The location, time and prizes are still to be finalised, but the event will be family oriented, starting in the day and running into the evening.
“It’s basically an event to usher in the Guyanese Christmas season with a celebration of the dish that we all love during Christmas time which happens to be one of our national dishes as well…,” she said. “It is expected to become a national event on the tourism calendar at the end of November which coincides with Tourism Awareness Month.”
