Adjudged the winner in the Best Caribbean Street Food Trader 2024 category in the United Kingdom’s Caribbean Annual Food Awards, Mahalia Arjoon, 52, wants women to know they can rise above unfortunate circumstances as she has done.
“This award is not only for me. It is for my business, my family and for my country Guyana. It is for women who have been knocked down, disappointed in life, who feel they have no voice and who feel that their dreams have been shattered. I know that feeling because I’d fit into that box,” Arjoon, a daughter of Kumaka, Mabaruma, told Stabroek Weekend from her adopted homeland in Frome, Somerset, England.
Arjoon, who attended the awards on Monday, 9th December, said she never expected to win because her name was at the bottom of the list with three other finalists. Just being nominated was good enough for her.
When her dish ‘Guyanese Thyme and Ginger Chicken’ and her name were called as the winner, she said, “My heart started pounding. My legs were like jelly. It all happened in a few seconds. I questioned, ‘Did I just win?’ If I could just bottle that joyous feeling, sell it and tell women, ‘Yes, you can!’ I would make millions for women who have been through a lot in their lives and feel there is no way out.”
In her impromptu speech, during which she became emotional, she dedicated the award to her customers who supported her and nominated her business for the award, to her late parents from whom she drew inspiration to own a restaurant and to carry on their legacy, and to one of her sisters who died six weeks ago.
“Those were very tearful moments for me. As I stood there, my whole life flashed before me. I told myself; I absolutely deserve this for all I’ve been through,” she said.
After the event, a representative of the sponsor of her category, Kerb Foods International in London told her she was chosen as the winner based on the feedback from customers. These included the love she puts into her cooking, the authenticity of the ingredients and the health element that goes into the food and service she provides.
Besides being a food vendor, Arjoon also has a niche business in health foods, and is a health coach and women’s coach.
“The health element that I try to sell, stood out. Although it’s traditional Guyanese food, it’s health-conscious Guyanese food,” she related. “As a health coach, I cater for people who have intolerance to foods like wheat and dairy. On the streets, it’s a difficult thing to find wheat-free and dairy-free foods and if you do, the prices are extortionate. I don’t charge that amount of money for you to enjoy food that is wheat and dairy free.”
Told by the judges that she was “building a lovely community” where she lives because of her food, she said, “the sentiment was very touching for me.”
Arjoon lives with her two young children in the southwest of England called the West Country where a lot of livestock and crop farming takes place.
“It’s a 25-mile drive from the famous Taunton County Cricket Ground where lots of Guyanese cricketers play county cricket. I only moved here last year,” she said.
Mahalia’s Kitchen
In 2019, Arjoon had opened a whole food cafe with Guyanese infused flavours in Street, Somerset where she lived for 17 years.
“I was one of the first Black persons and a Black woman to open a business in High Street, Street,” she said.
Recalling how she opened the cafe, she said she was returning home one day from the gym and told her gym instructor that she was going to open a cafe in a building she pointed out.
“It was one of those things that sprang out of the mouth without any thought or planning. That thought sat with me and by the end of the week I made enquiries about the building that was up for rent. I had no idea where I was getting the money to open this business,” she related.
Later that day she received a message on Facebook from the person who was renting the building.
“She rented me the place for half of what the real estate agent was asking for. I couldn’t turn it down. It’s like everything just fell into place. I bought the fridges and freezers she had at a reduced cost. It was only a handful of new things I bought to get the place up and running. Everything fell into place at the right time. I couldn’t believe it,” she stated.
Though she was married at the time, she said she opened the cafe singlehandedly.
“I was basically a single mom in a marriage. I think I was more progressive and wanted more out of life. I couldn’t live my life just going to and from a job that I didn’t like. It was literally killing me,” she added.
In 2022, she was forced to close the cafe.
“My daughter was ill with an undiagnosed disorder that lasted for five months. No medical professional was able to diagnose her illness. By that time my husband and I had separated, and I couldn’t juggle being a full-time carer for my daughter and managing a business. I chose to care for my daughter,” she related.
But even before she closed the cafe she was transitioning to street food.
“Street food was more flexible. It’s more income, less overheads, I could choose the events in which I would like to take part. That suited me as a single mom and to care for my daughter.
When I had the cafe, I had to open everyday whether I liked it or not…,” she noted. “With alternative therapies, faith and prayers my daughter started walking again and I was able to do more events and catering.”
That was a defining year for Arjoon. In December, three days before Christmas, she and her children became homeless due to the thoughtlessness of someone who had befriended her. This continued for five months and she went into emergency housing. She subsequently moved to Frome, Somerset and changed her offers completely from whole foods to Guyanese and Caribbean food flavours with a focus on health foods.
“Health food wasn’t trending in Street where I lived and Covid-19 forced us to change the way we operated our businesses in general,” she noted. “I started offering health food takeaways. I couldn’t see whole foods bringing in the sort of income I would want to generate like health foods takeaways. I switched to Guyanese and Caribbean foods promoting healthier versions of them. There was no Guyanese or Caribbean population there. However, people travel, and they know about the Caribbean flavours.”
She began promotion online and started with a once-a-month service.
Odd jobs
Even before she started the cafe, Arjoon cooked in the YMCA kitchen in Street.
“I invited my friends to sample my food, and those friends invited their other friends. People started to embrace what I offered, and they loved my flavours. Then I ventured into opening my own cafe,” she related.
She left her full-time job as a support worker for children and adults with learning disabilities, which she continued to do on a part-time basis and went fully into the food industry.
“I used my credit card to open my cafe and all the little bits of savings I had here and there. It was an incredible feeling when I opened my cafe in 2019. Covid-19 hit the following year. That’s when I changed to Caribbean foods with healthier food options,” she said.
She contended that Guyanese foods are among the tastiest in the Caribbean.
“I have customers who say that to me, not only the English,” she related. “Recently, at an event in one of the towns, a St Lucian said to me, ‘I have to confess that Guyanese and Trinidadian foods are the best tasting foods in the Caribbean.’ I told her our foods are influenced by our culture. Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago have a more mixed culture than the other Caribbean countries. We bring those flavours together. Our flavours are bold, but not hot to blow your head off, compared to the spicy dishes of some other cultures.”
Her flavours are based on spices with healing properties. For example, if she is cooking chicken curry, she notes the healing properties of ingredients like turmeric and cumin and the nutritional value of chicken.
“It’s not only healing to the body but to the mind. I choose my ingredients very carefully,” she said. Instead of shopping at supermarkets for certain ingredients she buys fresh and authentic ingredients from the source, such as the farm, the butcher or the greengrocer.
“It’s important to me that I know where my ingredients come from. When someone asks me what is in my dish, I can tell them,” she added.
Arjoon operates from her home. “I take part in events, or I cater for health retreats, other retreats and parties. Most people I cater for are health conscious. When I am at events like food festivals and food markets, it’s anyone who fancies what I offer. I take part in monthly food markets where I have a gazebo and where I take my cooking equipment,” she stated.
To operate from home and to take part in events, she has had to go through food handling training, pass food standards testing and obtain other legalities.
“My business is registered with the town council, it is insured, and the authorities had to certify that the mobile kitchen was up to standard for operation. It required quite a bit of investment too,” she said.
Settling in England
Arjoon left Guyana for England in 2001. She spent three years in London where she returned to school and did some courses in accountancy and in other areas. She worked with a Guyanese company, during which time she met her ex-husband and moved to Street, Somerset with him. In Somerset she worked as a data analyst with Clarks International until 2009, when she gave birth to her daughter.
“I became a stay-at-home mom because mentally I couldn’t deal with leaving her with someone I didn’t know,” she explained. “I had five miscarriages before her. I told my ex-husband I would even do cleaning when he got home from work. I got a cleaning job at the local school, and I cleaned the school for two hours in the evening. That was like therapy for me after being cooped up at home all day long. I had no family around, no friends, so that was where I went to let off steam. I had no support system. I did that for about eight months.”
After she left the cleaner’s job she became a support worker for adults with learning disabilities in the evenings and on weekends when her ex-husband was at home.
“That opened a new world to me and understanding human beings on a different level. I had to be trained and certified to work in the care industry. I did it with my daughter. I was becoming an all rounder,” she related.
In 2017, she obtained a certificate in health coaching from the Institute of Health Coaching.
“I had my own health problems, and I was looking for a more holistic approach to my health. That led from one thing to another, to focus on healthier dishes and to open the cafe,” she said.
From Kumaka Waterfront
Arjoon spent her childhood at Kumaka Waterfront and on the farm at Yarakita in Mabaruma. “After my parents’ business was burnt down at Kumaka, they moved us to Yarakita where we had the largest peanut farm in the North West District and possibly the largest in Guyana,” she recalled.
Her parents owned a restaurant at Kumaka Waterfront. As a child she and her siblings helped her mother in the restaurant after school and during the school holidays. They cleaned tables, mopped the floors, served customers and even managed the cash.
“As a little girl, I used to say, one day I would own a restaurant,” she recalled. “I put that dream aside because that felt like a big and difficult thing to achieve. Moving to England, I said I would never achieve that. In a foreign country, in the area where I lived, I was the only Black person there for about 14 to 15 years. Owning a restaurant there was like an impossible dream to achieve. I’d always loved cooking growing up. Even when I was working in Guyana, I took my own cooked food to work, and I took my stuff to staff department parties which I think were greatly appreciated.”
Arjoon attended St Joseph Primary School in Mabaruma Township and North West Secondary School until third form then completed her secondary education at St Joseph High School in Georgetown.
She was one course short of completing a diploma in marketing at the University of Guyana when she migrated to England. “I still say I attended the University of Guyana, just that I haven’t graduated, and I would have loved to,” she said.
After leaving school she worked as a customer assistant, and accounts clerk at several places before joining Guyana Publications Inc, publishers of Stabroek News, where she was a supervisor in the advertising department before she migrated.
“So, when I got into my own business, I brought together all of my experiences and poured them into it,” she said.
Going forward
As a menopause and a women’s empowerment coach Arjoon wants “to use my knowledge of health coaching, women’s empowerment training and my food business and merge all together under the Mahalia’s Kitchen umbrella.”
When women get to midlife, their lives change because of menopause, she noted.
“Women find it very challenging to figure out what is wrong with them,” she added. “Now we know that many of the symptoms they experience are related to menopause. It’s only now all these studies are coming out that show that 95% of health issues with women at midlife are related to perimenopause or menopausal issues. I want to help women transition from perimenopause to menopause and beyond. Women don’t have to fall to pieces at midlife. Midlife is when you can birth a new dream, and you can become yourself at midlife. At that age, most women have children who are grown up. Women earlier in life may not have done things for themselves which they can now do in midlife and thereafter.”
