What to Eat in Paramaribo: Pom, Javanese Saoto, Hindustani Roti and Schaafijs

Nowhere in South America is the table more cosmopolitan than in Paramaribo. Within a single day in the capital, you can eat an Indo-Caribbean curried lunch wrapped in warm flatbread, an afternoon Creole casserole rooted in seventeenth-century Sephardic Jewish and African plantation kitchens, and an evening Southeast Asian feast cooked by descendants of Javanese immigrants.

Creole and Afro-Surinamese Classics: Pom, Heri Heri, and Moksi Alesi

The festive centrepiece of every Surinamese birthday and family celebration is Pom, a dish born from the meeting of Portuguese-Jewish and Afro-Surinamese Creole kitchens. Cooks grate the raw tuber of the local pomtayer plant (arrowleaf elephant ear, Xanthosoma sagittifolium), season the batter with bitter orange and lime juice, piccalilli, nutmeg, and sugar, and layer it in a baking dish around sautéed chicken and salted beef (zoutvlees) stewed with tomatoes and onions, baking it for two hours until the top forms a deep golden crust. It is eaten warm with white rice and yardlong beans, or stuffed inside a crusty white bread roll as a midday broodje pom.

Equally beloved is Heri Heri, an ancestral Afro-Surinamese one-plate meal honouring the resilience of enslaved plantation workers: boiled cassava, sweet potato, yellow and green plantain, and yam served with flaked salted cod (bakkeljauw) sautéed with onions, tomatoes, and fiery Madame Jeanette peppers, crowned with a hard-boiled egg. Look too for smoky one-pot moksi alesi (rice simmered with black-eyed peas or dhal, coconut milk, salted meat, and dried shrimp) and rich pindasoep (peanut soup with plantain dumplings, tom-tom).

Javanese Warung Feasts in Blauwgrond: Saoto Soep, Saté, and Bakabana

In the northern district of Blauwgrond (and at lunchtime stalls along Waterkant), Javanese family warungs serve dishes adapted since the 1890s from central Java:

• Saoto Soep: A deeply aromatic chicken broth infused with lemongrass (sereh), galangal (laos), and salam leaf, poured over shredded chicken, bean sprouts, translucent vermicelli, a halved hard-boiled egg, and crunchy fried potato straws and shallots, served with a spoonful of white rice and dark sweet-soy chili sambal kecap.
• Bami, Nasi, Bakabana, and Telo: Order spiced Javanese bami goreng (stir-fried noodles) with charcoal-grilled chicken skewers drenched in thick peanut sauce (saté), sweet ripe plantains fried in batter and dipped in spicy peanut sauce (bakabana), or crisp fried cassava wedges with salted cod (telo).

Hindustani Roti, Barra, Schaafijs, and Parbo Bier

At Hindustani roti shops across the city centre, order roti kip: a wide, paper-soft flatbread stuffed with ground yellow split peas (dhal) or mashed potato, served alongside massala-curried chicken, soft potatoes, curried boiled egg, and crisp yardlong beans (kousenband), or snack on hot fried spinach-and-split-pea dough rings (barra) with green mango chutney. To beat the afternoon heat, stop at a street cart near Palmentuin for schaafijs (hand-shaved ice drenched in red kola, almond orgeade, or tamarind syrup), pink lemongrass-and-coconut-milk dawet, or an ice-cold one-litre bottle (djogo) of Surinamese Parbo Bier.