As the crowds grew larger in the shopping areas especially along Regent Street in the run-up to Christmas, Stabroek News visited several supermarkets and interviewed customers about what they are preparing for Christmas Day.
On Thursday, Stabroek News visited Bounty Supermarket and interviewed two customers while they were shopping for their food staples such as flour, sugar, rice, and meat. One customer, Shuntay Roberts, said that every year she would go down to Stabroek Market to buy her greens and vegetables in a large quantity then head over to Bounty Supermarket to buy items like butter, jam, packaged seasonings, and macaroni.
“I live on the East Coast and I live in an extended family so you know we have to prepare a lot of food,” she added. When asked about the various dishes she would normally cook on Christmas Day, she responded, “Fried rice, macaroni and cheese, puri and curry, baked chicken, but this year we trying a thing with the ham and the list goes on.”
Another customer was interviewed by Stabroek News but he wished to remain anonymous. “Normally my wife and my older daughter would come down to Bounty to buy all our ration but this last month she just gave birth to our grandson so she is not in the right shape to do the run around. So is just me and my daughter.” When asked what his wife would normally prepare he said “she would cook up all the nice food and finger foods you could think about like chowmein, macaroni salad and so, just like most of the other homes”. He also added that it’s the best season for his family.
Stabroek News also visited another supermarket downtown called Real Value and spoke to two customers while they were doing their grocery shopping. One of them, Alicia Cyrus, said this is her first year living in her own home as she recently moved from her mom’s. “My mother don’t cook on Christmas Day because she does be tired, so we does eat pepperpot and bread or pepperpot and rice or sometimes cake, but she cooks on Boxing Day, but since I moved out I will be doing my lil thing for me and my son.” When asked what she has planned to prepare she informed, “I’ll cook lil channa, fried-rice, mac and cheese, baked chicken, stuff eggs and some salad, since it’s just me and my son.” The other shopper noted, “Every year we does cook food, every, every, year on Christmas Day. Pepperpot, black cake, sponge cake, fruit, all of them nice things.”
On Friday, Stabroek News visited the Waterloo Street area of Georgetown and interviewed several persons about their Christmas preparations. One girl by the name of Lanaiha Clarke, was seen shopping for food items. She said she comes from a very small family of three – she lives with her mother and her younger brother – and they both will normally assist their mother in the kitchen. “Mommy will normally let us eat pepperpot and bread in the mornings, and sometimes she makes pancakes and we eat it with egg or cheese and syrup. For lunch she will prepare Spanish rice, roti and curry, macaroni and garden salad, fish cake or baked chicken, channa and even lasagna, sometimes she will add something extra to the menu but this is what we working with this year.” She also extended Merry Christmas prosperous New Year greetings to one and all.
Another young lady who gave her name as Bibi said, “I come from a Hindu family so we don’t celebrate Christmas… but we make preparations for the new year. She also added that she has a boyfriend who is a Christian so she would normally go over to his house every year and take food back home for her family. When asked what her boyfriend’s family would normally cook, she said, “Nice, nice, food, fried rice, chicken, macaroni, chowmein, sponge cake, black cake, everything you name it.”
A young man named Colin said he lives with his mother and two of his siblings. He told Stabroek News that his father was the chef of the family but unfortunately he died last February so this is the first Christmas without his father and the first Christmas without their family chef. “I’ll miss how my father used to cook boy, the man used to make some ‘bad’ recipes but everything used to taste wonderful, you smile when you done eat. All our cousins and aunties from East Bank and Linden used to come and spend the holidays by us just to eat my father’s food.”
Another person, Charlette, who spoke with Stabroek News said “Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. I am sad and angry to see many homes around Guyana and the world who don’t have Christmas much less to put food on their tables, but in my area there’s a very poor family, so every year not only Christmas time but I would go to that home and bless the mother with food for her children, when I know they eat then I does eat.” She also stated, “I would normally cook the regular food like fried rice and so.”
