My Gastronomica debut! My piece on cassareep, a versatile Guyanese flavoring sauce that is not well known outside of Guyana, appears in the winter 2012 issue on page 27. The piece takes you to a sparsely populated Makushi village in Guyana’s interior as well as the bustling markets of Georgetown, the capital, to bring you the story behind cassareep, the main ingredient in the Guyanese dish pepperpot. I also use cassareep in my modified recipe for pepperpot, which you can find here.
If you don’t subscribe to Gastronomica (which won Publication of the Year in the 2012 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards), you can read the issue at your local library (most libraries, at least). Or you can order a copy from http://www.Gastronomica.org. The winter 2012 issue also contains an article on Turkish simits and Elizabeth Hale’s piece “James Bond and the Art of Eating Eggs,” so hey, you can’t go wrong…
The Omnivorous Traveler's Notebook 
Hi — Congratulations. I just got back from Port 0f Spain & loved the piece.
I just read your interview with Praveen Anand. Great job! I’ll have to go to Dakshin when (if?) I have the chance to go to Chennai.
Thanks! In Port of Spain, they have their own version of pepperpot, but it doesn’t use cassareep. Did you have a chance to try it?
Thanks. I hope you get to Chennai(madras) sometime.
Sadly I did not taste any pepperpot in Port-of-Spain.
I inherited a bottle of Cassereep from my late mother and I don’t know how old it is. Also, does it have to be refrigerated when opened? I think not. Should I toss it or use it? I love Pepperpot and have a story for you. We lived in Georgetown for a few years, on Camp Street, to be exact, next door to the Georgetown Club and so it had Pepperpot going forever until the building burned down in I do not know what year, and it had to started up again. It is such a delicious dish and I will now print out the recipe. I live in Ontario, Canada, now. Thanks for a reply. Pat
A bottle of cassareep is shelf-stable for about two years, based on the expiration dates I have seen across various brands. I’ve always refrigerated them after opening, but I don’t know if it is necessary. If your bottle has no expiration date, I’d probably just chuck it to be safe.
That’s a great story about the perpetual pepperpot — sad to hear about the fire, though.