Traditional Food in Suriname

Suriname is one of the lesser-known countries in South America, which may be a missed opportunity for culinary travelers. Suriname is a multicultural country, home to, among others, East Indians, Javanese, indigenous groups, Creoles, Maroons, Brazilians, Chinese, Jews, and Dutch. This ethnic diversity is reflected in Suriname's wide variety of dishes, drinks and snacks.

You could argue that the national dish is chicken with rice and kouseband (yardlong bean), but no less popular are dishes like saoto soup, telo, roti, peanut soup, and pom, and equally important is the Madame Jeanette pepper, a hot, yellow chili pepper grown in Suriname, that characterizes the Surinamese cuisine. Longer than the more common Adjuma peppers, Madame Jeanettes are just as hot as Habanero peppers.

These photos focus on common food and dishes you will find in Suriname, but mind you, there is much, much more. To get to know them all you'll have to fly down here and check them all out for yourself.

Cooking on Wood Fire

Although in many houses in Suriname meals are cooked on gas (which has to be bought in cylinders), cooking on wood is still common in many places, especially the countryside and the Amazon forest. Here, in the kitchen of a children's home outside Paramaribo, Suriname's capital, a cook prepares three meals a day every day for 65 children. And while she does have a gas stove, she prefers cooking on a wood fire as the heat is much more intense, and works best when stir-frying.

Chicken with Rice and Kouseband

Arguably Suriname's most common dish: chicken with rice and yard beans.

Suriname is a rice-producing country and therefore, unsurprisingly, rice is a staple food. The most common type is Suriname’s patna, the white, long grain, dry and fluffy rice, eaten all over the world. In this dish, the rice is served with chicken and yard beans, which are also called long beans, pea beans, and snake beans. Representing a typical tropical vegetable, they can reach the length of a yard, although they are generally harvested when half that length, and cut in small pieces before being cooked or stir-fried.

Local tip: In Suriname it is common to soak raw chicken in vinegar for a couple of minutes, or to wash it with water and vinegar. Done for hygienic reasons, it tends to make the chicken more tender.

Vegetables

Vegetables make up an important part of Suriname's cuisine, and outside of markets and supermarkets, you will find produce from local gardens for sale along the sides of many roads. Among the popular veggies are okra, eggplant, and yard beans. What sets Suriname apart from other South American countries is the large number of leaf vegetables they use in their kitchen, with tayer arguably being the most popular. Many of them are bitter and considered a somewhat acquired taste.

Tayer – Arrowleaf Elephant's Ear (Xanthosoma sagittifolium)

Tayer has stems up to two meters tall and the leaf may reach one meter. The vegetable originates in Central and South America and was brought to, among other places, Africa by slave traders.

You can eat the leaves as well as the tayer's root. When cooked, the leaves are reminiscent of spinach and they are served with chicken or fish dishes. They are stir-fried in oil for a couple of minutes with garlic, onion, a Maggi cube, or vegetable broth.

The starchy root of the tayer, which can weigh up to two kilos, is shredded and baked with chicken, salted meat, and spices. This highly popular and incredibly tasty dish is called pom and often eaten on special occasions.

Skewers with Saté

You can't leave Suriname without having tried its saté, or satay, meat on skewers, grilled on coals. It is a popular Javanese snack or appetizer that is sold by vendors along the side of the road, or in bars, where it is a perfect complement to djogo – an ice-cold beer.

Saté can be made of any kind of meat, but most of the time chicken is used. The satés are marinated in soya sauce with salt and spices like ground coriander or cumin. Apart from as appetizers/snacks they may be served with dishes like fried rice (nasi goreng) or fried noodles (bami goreng).

Cassava Bread

Cassava, also called yuca or manioc, is a popular product in Suriname. Cassava flour is used by the Maroons (descendants of African slaves) and Amerindians to bake cassava bread. The Maroons have a tradition of making a drawing on the bread with their fingers and as a Maroon man can have several wives, the drawing will tell him which wife baked the bread.

Peanut Soup with Tomtom

A traditionally Creole dish, tomtom is made of broth, onion, peanut butter, Madam Jeanette peppers, spices and slivers of chicken. I personally love the addition of tomtom, which are balls of cooking plantains. The plantains are cooked, mashed and rolled into balls which are added to the soup and then cooked through.

Saoto Soup

Saoto originates from the Javanese community (Java is an Indonesian island) and you can order it in every warung (Indonesian restaurant). The ingredients may vary a bit depending on the cook, but it is a spicy chicken soup made with garlic, onion and spices like laos, sereh and white pepper.

Other ingredients may be bean sprouts, ginger, egg and/or thinly sliced potato. If you prefer it spicier, you can add sambal, a hot pepper condiment that is always served with Javanese meals. Saoto is served as a first course or a main meal.

Telo with Fish

Cassava is not only used to bake flat breads, but the tubers are also cut into strips and subsequently cooked and fried, called telo. Telo is served with meat or fish dishes, or can be eaten as a snack pretty much like French fries.

There are various telo dishes, the most common being telo with bakkeljauw (salted cod) and telo with trie (anchovy fried with tomato, soya sauce and Madame Jeanette pepper).

The telo and fish are served with peanut sauce, which is often made from scratch with peanut butter mixed with soya sauce, garlic and spices.

Bami or Mie Goreng

"Goreng" means 'fried', so mie goreng is fried egg noodles, locally called bami, or bami goreng. This is one of the typical Javanese dishes in Suriname. Like Nasi goreng – fried rice – bami is fried with garlic, onion, spices, soya sauce, chopped Madame Jeanette peppers, and vegetables like cabbage. It is generally served with a piece of chicken and slices of tomato and cucumber.