THE Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday October 29, 2019, hosted its annual inter-agencies’ cook-off competition at the Ministry of Agriculture, where nine (9) different agencies participated under the theme ‘Healthy Eating’.

Staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, Selwyn Anthony, said that the annual inter-agencies’ cook-off started four years ago and it is one of the main events on the Ministry of Agriculture’s calendar of events. He added that the event which is usually held in October and it is usually held in the month of October provides the opportunity for agencies to demonstrate their skills.

He further stated that the main ingredients this year were Boulanger and Banana and participants were expected to utilize the two ingredients and produce a three-course meal and a beverage. Inter-agency cohesion was the objective and it was hoped that the agencies would demonstrate that the same ingredients could be cooked differently.
Deputy Permanent Secretary Administration, Aretha Henry, said “We are also focusing on healthy eating, we are what we eat and we want to promote healthy eating”.
Representative form the Guyana Rice Development Board, Gangadai Dindayal, gave this publication a belief understanding about their Healthy Eating meal. She stated that the appetizer was a spicy Caribbean banana soup where rice flour was used to ‘spice up the soup’.

“Our main dish is the boulanger lasagna where the boulanger takes the place of the pasta. We also have our banana split salad which contains fruits such as pineapple chunks, banana chunks and watermelon chunks. It also has nuts and chocolates. For our beverage we have our banana horchata made of rice and banana,” Dindayal added.

Manager of the Agro-Processing Unit at the School of Agriculture, Grace Parris, stated that her agency’s healthy meal started with the boulanger Sushi which was made by using the boulanger as the wrap and included rice, sweet pepper, carrots, and cheese.

” we have our rice which was cooked with boulanger skin then tossed with some banana raisins. In order to make a boulanger stuffed fish, one needs to fry the boulanger inside of the fish,” Parris added.

Those in attendance were impressed by the numerous tasty dishes which were on display, having been made from the two simple ingredients.