Culinary Musings

Written on April 27th, 2010

Oh food. Here in the Gambia it is both my enemy and my best friend. It sustains me, it makes me violently ill, it makes me feel happy, it makes me want to scream and vomit at the same time, it is a constant reminder of my "outsiderness" and a great comfort when the going gets tough.
So, you may be wondering, what exactly am I eating here. As far as Gambian food goes its rice, rice and more rice. My family eats rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. On a handful of days (like the Prophet Mohamed's birthday) we've substituted rice for cheray which is a cereal called coos, pounded and milled into a flour like substance that's then sifted and cooked. Both cheray and rice are served with a few different kinds of sauces. My family rotates through two most consistently.
The first is called "chew" and its basically rice with fish cooked in an oil (vegetables or palm) sauce with vegetables (egg plant, cabbage, carrot, bitter tomato), onions, tomato paste, salt, pepper, Jumbo (an MSG cube) and hot pepper. Some days I like chew but it is by far the most common dish in my village so I get sick of it pretty quickly. The women love to cook it because it shows that they have enough xalis (money) to buy oil.
The second dish is called "mafe" or "domada" and this is rice with peanut sauce. The peanut sauce is made with peanut butter (which is made from the ground nuts they harvest each year), tamarind, tomato paste, hot pepper, Jumbo and sometimes dried salted fish. Mafe is definitely my favorite because a) the rice is not dripping in oil and b) I can feel all the protein seeping out of my body with every bite of peanut sauce I take. Mafe however is usually the Plan B meal for when the "Yah Boy" fish man doesn't come or there's not enough money for oil.
Another much less common meal is "sauce farine"--flour sauce--which I detest because it is a very watery version of mafe, though I do like the fish meatballs that are usually in it. For special occasions in village we get to have "bena chin" which is very oily spicy rice with meat and vegetables but because of the vat of oil it requires its to expensive for every day meals.
For breakfast we alternate between sweet and savory. Either it is some version of "mbaxal" which is spicy rice with pounded peanuts and green onion, spicy rice with fish or, my breakfast favorite, "churay gerte" which is a porridge of pounded rice and peanuts, salt and sugar.

When my mind or body just can't take Gambian food I have a trunk full of slightly more familiar alternatives. These can be found when I come into the city, in the form of yogurt, egg rolls, hamburgers, falafal, pizza and chwarma. Or in KJJ I have a trunk full of slightly more familiar alternatives. For breakfast I usually make oatmeal or cereal and tea with powdered milk. For lunch I always eat with my family but because we eat the same thing for lunch and dinner I can decide if I want to eat with my family for dinner or cook for myself. My "development cooking" experiments have so far been very successful. I've made curry a few times, macaroni and cheese, ramen noodles with vegetables and egg, tuna and my personal favorite, spicy creamy tomato sauce which is tomato paste, milk, hot peppers and whatever vegetables I can find. I am still trying to figure out what to do with the bags of dried beans I bought after swear-in.
When traditional meals aren't enough to quell my appetite I also have the comfort of cookies and candy sent from home as well as whatever fruits and snacks (salted peanuts, panketos-which are like donut holes, fish pies, oranges, cashew apples and mangos) I can find in village.
So for all my Jewish aunties out there--I am eating enough--and (most) of it is delicious.