African Cooking Class #1

Today after work Jackie and I headed across the street from Redemption (the hospital where the dental clinic is located) to Mama’s house. Mama is a lady in her early 30’s who runs a little stand on the side of the road in front of the hospital. Her main items for purchase are bananas and oranges. She likes us so much that she also offers to make plantain chips for us on a regular basis. :) Mama is such a lovable person. Almost every day she makes her way over to the clinic to check on the crew. She always leaves us by saying see you tomorrow, God willing.

The other day I was talking with her and sharing my hopes and dreams of one day getting to prepare an African dish for my loved ones at home, and she responded by saying “come I will teach you.”

So last Thursday I mapped out all the details to my first African cooking class. We settled on today to be our first class. Jackie the assistant coordinator also shares the same hopes and dreams as I, so she decided she had better enroll in the cooking class as well. The menu for our first class was as follows: potato greens soup, okra soup, peanut sauce soup, and chili aka pepper spice.

We started cooking at about 3:30 and finished up around 5:30. It was great. I cleaned and cut potato greens, mashed peppers for the spice, cooked the okra, fried fish eye balls and all, learned the secret of adding spices, mixed up a little peanut sauce, and in the end was able to sample each dish that we had prepared. I was cruising through my first class with flying colors until Mama passed me the fish. I am a custom to buying already cut and cleaned fish at Dierbergs at home but not in West Africa. Here you head to the market and buy fish that have basically have just taken their last breath in some instances or in others have been hanging out in the Hot Humid air for hours and more likely than not are infested with flies.

I have tried to steer away from the fish here that is sold in the markets for a few reasons, #1 I have a fetish with meat on bones…given that be fried chicken, ribs, fish. I just hate eating meat off the bone, #2 I don’t know how to clean a fish. I know that is hard to believe given the facts of where I grew up, and where I went to college at but it is true I haven’t a clue, and the 3rd reason I am not a fan of eating meat that has been sitting out all day. Anyway Mama asked me to clean and prepare the fish…. I said to her hmmm not sure I can do that. She replied it is part of the class, I said well then I guess I fail the class because I am not sure I can descale that fish, especially with it looking me in eye like it is. :) I am a wimp I know but I just am not a fan, I mean I could have done it if I HAD to do it, but I didn’t have to, and Mama seemed to be doing a fine job.

In the end after 2 hours of cooking, several visitors stopping to see what these white women were doing, sampling our dishes by eating with our hands, and a few burns from the HOT coal stoves Jackie and I had successfully completed our first African cooking class. And despite rejecting to skin the fish, I still passed with an A+. Cooking class #2 coming soon: palm oil.

Good news for all my friends and family at home….. I will be having an open house once I get back, and these dishes will be available for each of you to sample minus the fish with the eyes and bones. :)