In Guyana & the Eastern Caribbean there is a sauce, originally produced by the Amerindians, called casareep which is made made from fermented cassava or manioc. This is used to make a meat stew called pepperpot (not to be confused with Jamaican pepperpot, which is a very fiery soup). Casareep imparts magical keeping qualities to this stew; providing that you boil it up every day, you can add more meat & keep it going for a year - or so I was told. I never knew anyone who did this. We had it as our special treat for Sunday breakfast
Casareep looks like soy sauce. In Trinidad soy sauce is known as Chinese casareep, thus bringing us back to the country in which we began
PS Damn! On yesterdays (November 12 2006) R4 Food Programme a man called Ivan Day said that cat-see-ap comes from Vietnam. How could he spoil my conceit in this way?
Serendipity corner. Today (26 March 2007) I chanced upon another website which gives Dutch/Indonesian/Sranantongo words for Surinamese ingredients.
Kasiri is a kind of cassava jack, a weak liquor
Kasripo is casareep, used for stews
End of argument: OED says ketchup derives from ke-tsiap, an Amoy dialect word. And so another circle: one of the most widely available brands of soy sauce is ????
Link
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