Creole
Heri heri: the dish of Keti Koti
Heri heri is a Surinamese dish of boiled plantain, cassava and sweet potato served with salt cod and egg. It is eaten above all on 1 July, Keti Koti, which commemorates the abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863.
Flavour and texture
Soft and starchy, barely spiced. The salt of the fish carries the whole plate.
Street price, indicative SRD 100–200
Heri heri comes straight out of the plantation era: roots and plantain that could be grown in the field, boiled and supplemented with what little protein there was. It was never devised to be delicious, it was devised to fill.
That it is now eaten on Keti Koti is exactly the point. On 1 July Suriname marks the abolition of slavery in 1863, and heri heri belongs to that day the way particular foods belong to any remembrance: everyone knows why.
The ingredients were never a matter of taste. Enslaved people received rations and a provision plot, a piece of ground on which they had to grow what the ration did not cover: cassava, sweet potato, tayer and plantain, crops that stood the climate and kept after harvest. The salted fish came from trade, not from the river.
Keti Koti is Sranan Tongo for "the chains are broken". Slavery in Suriname was abolished on 1 July 1863, followed by ten years of state supervision until 1873, during which the freed population was still required to work on the plantations. Heri heri belongs to that commemoration as food with an argument: the plate shows what people were made to live on.
On the plate: boiled plantain, cassava, sweet potato and sometimes taro, with salt cod, a hard-boiled egg and occasionally a piece of salted meat.
Frequently asked questions
What is heri heri?
Heri heri is a Surinamese dish of boiled roots, plantain, cassava, sweet potato, sometimes taro, with bakkeljauw (salt cod) and a hard-boiled egg. It descends from plantation cooking.
Why is heri heri eaten on Keti Koti?
Keti Koti on 1 July commemorates the abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863. Heri heri is what enslaved people ate, and eating it on that day is a deliberate act of remembering where it comes from.
Where does heri heri come from?
From plantation cooking in Suriname. The roots on the plate, cassava, sweet potato, tayer and plantain, were grown on the provision plots of enslaved people; the salted fish entered the colony as a cheap trade good. Slavery was abolished on 1 July 1863.
What does Keti Koti mean?
Keti Koti is Sranan Tongo for "the chains are broken". It is the commemoration on 1 July of the abolition of slavery in Suriname in 1863; the state supervision that followed ran until 1873.
Can you get heri heri vegetarian?
The roots and the egg are vegetarian, the salt cod is not. Ask for heri heri without fish and with an extra egg; the plate stays complete and costs SRD 100 to SRD 200 in a Creole eating house.