06/26/2020
Maurice Leyland Gordon, popularly known as “Tripee”, was
born on May 5, 1945 to the late Claude Ivan Gordon and
the late Agatha Gordon in Georgetown, Guyana, South
America.
His early Christian and secular education were obtained in
Georgetown at St. Stephens Primary School. Upon leaving
school, Tripee was employed in various skilled and
unskilled positions. He also worked for Guyana Airways
Corporation for a period of time. Regardless of whatever job
he held, Tripee always found the time to practice his first
love and primary craft, his culinary skills. He was the camp
cook for the YMCA camps he attended in the late
1960’s. Tripee’s legendary culinary skills were first
introduced to the public way back in the day, in Guyana,
where his delicious cook-up rice made with a liberal portion
of cow tripe became famous. He has been credited for
cooking the best tripe cook-up rice in the history of Guyana
and the Caribbean. This is what led to his nickname
“Tripee”.
Tripee immigrated to the United States on January 10,
1975. Upon his arrival he enrolled at the New York
Institute of Dietetics – Culinary School. He excelled in his
studies and graduated at the top of his class. Subsequent
to his graduation he launched his world famous Tripee’s
Caribbean Restaurant located at 887 Nostrand Avenue,
Brooklyn, New York at the corner of Crown Street. His
restaurant became a fixture of the Guyanese community in
Brooklyn. Tripee’s Caribbean Restaurant was one of the
first pre-eminent Guyanese and West Indian restaurants in
the New York area at that time. Tripee’s was the place for
your home away from home exquisite Guyanese
cuisine. Guyanese people who either came to live in, or to
visit New York, made it their duty to visit Tripee’s
restaurant in line with the restaurant’s popular slogan
“have you eaten at Tripee’s lately?” To this day, Guyanese
from all over the world continue to congregate at “Tripee’s
Corner” at Nostrand and Crown to celebrate Labor Day in
true Guyanese style and fashion.
Tripee had a highly creative, inventive, and innovative
cooking and baking style. His specialty was preparing
dishes with his own unique style in ways that it was never
done before. In the words of his daughter Denise “Daddy’s creativity in the kitchen taught me to bring a solutionoriented
perspective to everything that I do. We often
figured out meals by what ingredients we had available
instead of what the recipe required. Viewing life through
this lens has helped me to be a better mother, wife and
nurse”. Tripee invented bake and saltfish with the salt fish
cooked inside of the bake. He also created the eggless
omelet.
Tripee was a music lover and an avid sports fan. He loved
to listen to music while he cooked. One of his favorite
singers was the mighty sparrow. In the area of sports as a
young man he played soccer like his older brother Vernon,
who played for the Guyana Police Force. Tripee played
soccer for the Santos football club. He was a
goalkeeper. Tripee loved boxing. Many of Guyana’s
professional boxers would come to visit him at the
restaurant when they came to New York. He was also a
member of the YMCA for a number of years.
Apart from being an awesome, outstanding, and gifted chef,
Tripee was also a fun loving, caring, loving, loyal,
compassionate human being. He was very family oriented
in every sense of the term. He had a way of bringing a
unique sense of comfort, assurance, and dependability to
his family. This quality was extended to his numerous
friends as well. This incredible man was adored by his
family as well as so many in the community. His legendary
culinary skills, his caring nature, his humor, and his love
of people and life are some of the many traits that
characterized his amazing personality.
This awesome father was a living example to his
children. He taught them many valuable lessons about life
and love. Additionally, they also learned a lot from him by
just paying attention to his style, conduct and
mannerism. From all appearances, it seems like if you
have Tripee’s DNA in your body that you automatically
inherit his culinary gifts and skills. All of his children are
excellent cooks and bakers. They all also exemplify the
habit of listening to music as they work their magic in the
kitchen. Indeed, in this case, the chips did not fall far from
the block.
Tripee was also very giving. When he had a lot, he shared it
with everyone and anyone who was in need. His church
home, New Life Center of Truth, honored him with a plaque
