Updated
September 28, 2003
Gambia
Tourist
Support
English West African
Cookery
Techniques
Most Gambian cookery is done over an open fire. So forms of cooking using
a direct heat source are the most popular.
Women using
a giant pestle and mortar to crush the ingrediants
Making Happy Tea
Boiling, stewing, frying and barbecue type roasting are the main cooking techniques, using the direct heat of a fire.
The baking of bread is mainly carried out by local bakeries, working all night, so if you are still up at 2 in the morning, after a night at a club, call in and get a fresh tapalapa (local bread). (see ingredients). Very little baking of any sort is done by local people who seldom have ovens.
A very few have flat irons which are used to cook flat breads like chapatis or drop type scones, but these are not usual in the area.
Vegetables and spices are generally pounded together to form a sauce base used in stews and soups, it is unusual to be served a vegetable cooked by it self - not have multiple ring cookers foods tend to be cooked together. Often the rice is cooked first and kept till the sauce is ready.
Meat is available, but from the local markets tends to be rather tough and needs extensive stewing to soften it. (Supermarkets in the towns sell beautiful meat, too expensive for the locals and kept for sale to rich tourists). The better cuts are Afra cooked (marinaded and barbecued often at road side stalls) but afra cooking is also carried out on the veranda's of homes, where much of the cooking is done.
Fish is gutted, but is generally cooked whole and the only things left at the end of the meal is the bones.
No techniques section would be complete without a description of 'Happy Tea'.
This is a male bonding ritual, the 'gunpowder tea is boiled in a small pot direct on the charcoal and mixed with a lot of sugar, the mixture is frothed by pouring it from glass to glass a few times, then it is reheated and poured again. The whole process is watched by the assembled men who chat and watch and chat, it can take 30 or 40 minutes to achieve a brew Up to three or four mixtures are made each getting weaker. It is an acquired taste, once acquired it becomes an event one looks forward too with anticipation.
5 Top
