@sreypov and I recently landed a catering gig through one of our friends. We enjoy cooking very much, but in Suriname the produce is sub-par, there is little variety, and fruits and vegetables are more expensive than meat and cheese.
π§ How Every Meal Starts For Us In Suriname π€’
Β Β Β Whether catering or cooking for our family, every meal always starts with discarding around 25% of the produce. Nearly all produce in Suriname is picked too late and/or partially rotten by the time it arrives in the markets, something I have yet to understand why.
Β Β Β When I tell locals of this problem, the answer is always to go the main market downtown, a 2-hour roundtrip by bicycle for us non-car owners. When you've arrived here from Cambodia and you've been living in nearly self-sufficient neighborhoods for 10+ years, this is a real hassle, although . Shame that inefficency in is the norm here, much like USA.
Β Β Β We're accustomed to traveling no more than 5 minutes to access a high-quality and affordable selection of 300+ different fruits, vegetables and herbs, so switching to a choice between the same 12 half-rotten fruits and vegetables day in and day out makes a foodie's life extremely boring.
π©βπ³ The Catering Gig π¨βπ³
Β Β Β As I already mentioned, the lack of fruit/veg/herb variety here constricts our cooking very much, and this makes catering a complicated job. We were cooking for a party of 10, 2x mains and an appetizer. The dishes were Vegtable Amok, Indian-Style Yellow Veg Fried Rice, Peanut Vadas, and Date/Tamarind Chutney. @Sreypov prepared the amok while I cooked a kilo of rice in our gigantic pressure cooker and prepared the vada batter.
Β Β Β Working with only two burners on our stove, everything has to flow quickly and smoothly. When the stove was free, Pov began frying the vadas and making the chutney while I cooled the rice and chopped veggies. After this as through, Pov began plating everything for transport while I made the fried rice in three consecutive batches.
Β Β Β Not only did we cater this event, we needed to deliver it too. There are no taxis in our neighborhood, so we luckily found a friend down the street with wheels who he hired as an impromptu taxi driver. We've ridden in a car as family barely more than ten times in our life outside of trips to and from airports, so carsickness becomes an issue after any more than 10 minutes on the road.
Β Β Β You can see in the above photo Pov and Monkey-B were feeling the effects already, but Srey-Yuu hadn't yet succumbed.
πΆοΈ The Culinary Competition In Surinameπ₯‘
Garden of Eden Menu - Thai Restaurant π
Β Β Β As far as I know, there is only one Thai restaurant in Suriname, serving the only thing remotely comparable to Pov's Amok. This is the Garden of Eden, and a veg curry goes for $18.00 USD, slightly more expensive than my hometown in Indiana, which sells this dish for $14.95. Here in Suriname ten takeaway portions of veg curry would be $180.00 USD.
π Maharajah Palace Menu - Indian Restaurant π
Β Β Β Moving into my wheelhouse that is Indian cuisine, of which Suriname has only three restaurants I am aware of serving authentic Indian dishes. Something loosely comparable to our peanut peanut vadas is the above hara bhara kebabs. Assuming the portions our huge like ours, 5 orders these would be enough for 10 people, and would cost $500.00 SRD locally, the equivalent of $25.00 US.
Β Β Β Veg Biryani, the closest thing to my fried rice served here, is $150 SRD per portion, so for 10 people $1,500 SRD, the equivalent of $75.00 USD. As a chef I always like to see what other similar cuisine is sold for locally. We could imagine with delivery included, a delivery of food like ours would cost $280.00 USD + delivery fees (based on the above menus), and it quickly becomes obvious why we don't eat out in this country, or do basically anything "out" here.
Β Β Β It's crazy to think that Suriname is more expensive than my boyhood home of southern Indiana in the USA, whether it be restaurants, hotels, or real estate, just about everything is more expensive. Just imagine the shock when we arrived here from Cambodia π€―, a place about 10 to 20 times cheaper than Suriname.
Culinary Conclusion
Β Β Β Hive-blogging is still the most profitable thing for us to do here in Paramaribo, plus it's much less tiring work than cooking, delivering, hunting quality produce down, etc. Ital food is also not popular in Suriname like it is in other Caribbean countries, plus authentic SouthEast Asian and South Asian cuisine are not popular either, so it'd be economic suicide to open an South-SouthEast Asian Ital cafe in this country........ and did I mention the COVID pandy?
Β Β Β The gardener that works for our landlord is no more educated than we are, and he probably earns $100 a month for his work, so we are very thankful that our Hive-blogging income puts us in a place to help at least one person here in the same boat as ourselves.
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