Excerpt from Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present by Andrea Gunraj

For our second attempt at pepperpot, my husband and I purchased a roast, hoping it would tenderize well in the Instant Pot.

As we had done the first time, we bought a loaf of challah bread to soak up the sauce. We dutifully acquired more Scotch bonnet peppers and cinnamon sticks.

How my heart fell when I unscrewed the lid and realized we didn’t have enough cassareep to coat a second batch of pepperpot. As my husband sautéed the beef over the stove, I pinched an eighth-inch teaspoon between my fingers to scrape as much of the dregs of the cassareep as I could into a measuring cup. By the time my knuckles were sticky with syrup and I could salvage no more, I had collected less than half a cup.

I searched online. There was no West Indian store within a reasonable distance of my apartment. I almost convinced myself that one of the nearby convenience stores would carry cassareep, but I knew I’d waste time trying to find it there.

The beef sizzled with the oil and onion and garlic powder, quickly browning. I was frantic. Cassareep substitute, I typed into the search bar, and the internet offered a pepperpot recipe from a women’s magazine. It said I should order cassareep online or find it at a well-stocked Caribbean market. But if I couldn’t get it where I lived, it assured me I could substitute a homemade replica of molasses, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce.

This was a delinquent stroll down a back alley. I’d already been warned about cassareep knockoffs. But I calculated the measurements and combined the mishmash of sauces with the cassareep to make my own imitation anyway.

The thing about cassareep is that, to the untrained eye, it seems uniformly thick and black in a sealed jar. But it pours with a surprisingly fluid give. Its edge, lined against the side of a bowl, reveals a reddish-brown tinge. Its coating in an emptying bottle produces the dimples and rivulets of stained glass. Cassareep’s colour and texture, like its taste, contain dimensions.

Even when blended with the real thing, the women’s magazine hybrid was too black and thick. Its scent was evocative but too sharp in the nostrils. I had not made a valid alternative. I had sired Frankenstein fluid. We wrinkled our noses and slathered it over the beef.

A curious scent intensified during the hour and a half of pressure cooking, infiltrating the apartment. The closets were closed, but I worried about fumes weaselling into my clothes, my jacket and scarves. I couldn’t say the odour was terrible, exactly, but I couldn’t say it was pepperpot, either.

Chewing silently, slowly, my husband and I consumed the stew we had spawned. I frowned into my bowl. The beef was blackened; the sauce was oil-speckled as it should have been. But molasses had made the dish too sweet and strangled the bitterness and acid. Cinnamon overpowered everything, snuffing the Scotch bonnets.

Leftovers of our apocryphal pepperpot lasted too long. We had to eat it for a whole week and a half. After a few days, I abandoned the sauce, scooping the meat and tipping the spoon to drain the liquid back into the container. I toasted Wonder Bread and moodily ate molasses-saturated beef in a sandwich. 

I didn’t see the point of honouring what we had made. It was a poor approximation of something West Indian, Amazonian, and inherent to ancient land, the way I’d often felt myself. Too many times removed.

—Excerpt from Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present by Andrea Gunraj, published by Pengiun Random House Canada, 2026. Reprinted with permission. Copyright Andrea Gunraj.

About Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present:

The under-told legacy of indentured servitude runs through the blood of countless descendants in the diaspora. In this deeply felt collection of essays, Andrea Gunraj explores the impact of her family’s history on her sense of self.

Andrea Gunraj delves into the under-told legacy of indentured labour and its lasting impacts on descendants across diasporas, from the Caribbean and Latin America to Canada, the United States, and beyond. She captures the complexities of belonging and the challenges of navigating dichotomies. Through the concept of “go-betweenness,” Gunraj illustrates her path from the intersections of race, class, and identity to a broader understanding of colonial histories.

A gripping read that weaves memoir with history and cultural criticism, Go-Between Girl is both accessible and profound, intimate and political. Gunraj invites readers  to reconsider their narratives about work, love, and heritage. Her essays are a touching testament to the enduring quest for justice, offering a powerful contribution to contemporary conversations on race, feminism, and the unfinished legacies of colonialism.

ANDREA GUNRAJ is an essayist and author of The Lost Sister (Vagrant Press) and The Sudden Disappearance of Seetha (Knopf Canada). She lives in Toronto and loves to write about underseen stories and connections. She is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada. Visit andreagunraj.ca for more information.

Photo of Andrea by Kiran Geer.