Guyanese Seven Curry (A Guide to the 7 Curries)

Seven curry is a traditional Guyanese meal of seven vegetarian dishes served with rice. This feast is a staple at Indo-Guyanese weddings and Hindu religious ceremonies, and it’s a cherished part of the wider Guyanese food experience.

Guyanese Seven Curry

Every now and then, I get a strong craving for Guyanese seven curry. My grandmother was Hindu, and as a child I took part in many jhandis, where this meal was always part of the experience. While it’s mostly enjoyed at festivals, Hindu weddings, and pujas (Hindu rituals), I sometimes find myself wanting that same spread in the comfort of my own home.

Seven curry is also a big part of Phagwah and Diwali, two Hindu festivals that are national holidays in Guyana. Phagwah (Holi) welcomes spring with colored powder and water, and Diwali, the festival of lights, is celebrated with diyas, sweets and family meals. If you’re looking for something special to make for Diwali at home, this is it.

This meal features everything from root vegetables to fruit (green mangoes). I love the marathon of it: toasting the spices for masala, making batches of curry paste, and using every pot I own to make this special meal for my family!

Curry is a universal dish with many variations. In this guide, you’ll learn the history of Guyanese seven curry and how to make the dishes that are part of this traditional meal. The meal is completely vegetarian and I love that about it.

What to know About Seven Curry

• It’s a must-try in Guyana. Ask anyone what to eat on a visit, and seven curry is on the list.
• It doesn’t have to be seven. Most homes make 4 or 5 curries for everyday meals and save all seven for big occasions like weddings. Which seven make the plate varies a little by family, but they come from a small set of traditional vegetables.
• It’s fully vegetarian. It’s prayer food, so there’s no meat. Vegetables, legumes and spices make it filling and nourishing.
• It’s eaten by hand, off a leaf. Traditionally it’s served on a lotus leaf with rice in the center, and dhal poured over it.

What is Seven Curry?

Seven curry is a Guyanese meal with deep Indian roots. It’s a vegetarian meal eaten during Hindu religious ceremonies and is sometimes called prayer food. It’s very similar to an Indian vegetarian thali. The dishes are placed on a large water large lotus leaf, with rice in the center, for a beautiful mix of colors, flavors, and textures.

When I visited Kerala, I ordered a vegetarian thali on one of our tours, and to my surprise, it came on a banana leaf with seven dishes! It felt like a little piece of home.

The History of Guyanese Seven Curry

Seven curry has its roots in the traditions of the East Indian indentured laborers who began arriving in Guyana on May 5, 1838 (Royal Historical Society). Guyanese once marked that date as Indian Arrival Day; today we call it Arrival Day, to honor everyone who came to our beautiful country, no matter where they came from. The indentured laborers brought their faith and food traditions with them, and over time, the full spread of curries around rice, much like an Indian thali, became a meal for religious occasions in Guyana.

The dishes themselves were shaped by what they had. On the ships from India, daily rations included rice, flour, ghee, dhal (mostly yellow toor dal), gram (the chickpeas we call channa), pumpkin, and potatoes (Gastronomica). In Guyana, yellow split peas became our dhal, and the land filled in the rest: eddoes grew abundantly along the trenches, so the leaves became the original bhaji, cooked down in coconut milk, and the roots were curried with baigan. Katahar was picked green, and green mangoes were everywhere.

From Prayer Food to Everyday Meal

Seven curry is prayer food, so it’s always vegetarian. In Hinduism, many devotees avoid meat and fast before religious observances, and food is offered to God before it’s eaten (Hindu Website). As a child, I ate it at jhandis with my grandmother, and I loved Diwali, when I got to help her make the sweets.

At home, it looks a little different. For a smaller, thali-style meal, most Guyanese families make 4 or 5 curries: dhal is always one, plus 3 or 4 of the others, and it’s more of a weekly meal. For Diwali and Phagwah, some families also make 4 or 5 instead of all seven. But at a wedding, it’s always seven. And if you’re lucky, there’s mango achar and coconut choka on the side (in Guyana, the coconut is roasted first, which gives it a smoky flavor), plus wedding house puri, a soft, lightly fried flatbread made for tearing and scooping.

What are the 7 Curries?

There’s no single set list. Every family has its own combination, and that’s part of what makes seven curry special. The vegetables most commonly used are pumpkin, mango, bhaji, baigan (eggplant), eddo, katahar (breadnut), and potato with channa (Guyana Tourism Authority). Dhal is always one of the seven. Some lists count it separately, but in all the seven curry meals I’ve eaten, it’s never seven curries plus dhal. Dhal is the seventh, poured right over the rice.

You’ll see them show up in many combinations, mainly:

• Pumpkin
• Mango curry
• Bhaji
• Baigan and eddo, or baigan curry and eddo curry as two separate dishes
• Katahar curry
• Potato curry, or channa and potato curry

My Seven Curry Favorites

How to Serve

Seven curry is traditionally served on a large lotus leaf with rice in the center, and eaten by hand. Most Guyanese simply call it “the leaf” or a “puri leaf,” but in Indo-Guyanese homes, you’ll also hear “purine leaf.” The name likely comes from purain, the Bhojpuri word for lotus leaf. At a jhandi I went to in Guyana, the host picked the leaves fresh from a pond in his backyard that morning.

The curries are spooned around the rice, and the dhal goes on last, poured over the top. Depending on the occasion, you might also get some pepper sauce on the side. To serve it at home without a leaf, use a large plate or a banana leaf, which you can find frozen at most Asian and Latin grocery stores.

Tips for Preparing the Best Seven Curry

• Prep everything first. Measure, peel, drain and dice all your ingredients before you start. Most of the curries use the same herbs, spices and aromatics, so this goes quickly.
• Make one big batch of curry paste. Since the curries share the same spices, mix the paste once and divide it between the pots.
• Pull out all the kitchen tools. A food processor saves chopping time. Most of us have a favorite burner, but for this meal, use every burner, and a pressure cooker too.
• Start with the longest-cooking curries. Dhal and katahar take the longest, so get those going first. Finish with quick ones like bhaji and pumpkin, so everything is ready around the same time.
• Multitask. Prep the next dish while another simmers, and adjust the heat as you go to prevent burning.
• Spread it over two days. Dhal, channa and katahar hold up well, and often taste even better the next day. Make them ahead, and cook the quicker curries on the day you serve.
• Make it communal. Seven curry has always been a group effort. At jhandis and weddings, the cooking is shared, and so is the meal. Invite friends and family to help: one person on the dhal, someone else stirring the pumpkin, someone keeping the kitchen clean. Half the fun is cooking together.

Frequently Asked Questions