Cassava Leaves
on M&S Diary (Sierra Leone), 28/Sep/2006 16:40, 34 days ago
Last weekend I had my first attempt at proper Sierra Leonean cooking– much to the amusement and disbelief of my colleagues on Monday. I had told Joseph – the soft spoken and conscientious office assistant at VSO – that I wanted to learn to cook Sierra Leonean food and he and his wife Zainab had written me a recipe for a favourite national dish known as “Cassava Leaves.”On Saturday morning Patricia and I walked down to Aberdeen Road Market. There we bought three big bunches of cassava leaves. There is a section of the market dedicated entirely to these well-loved leaves where gaggles of women chat and guard their precious piles of greenery. Patricia was ferocious in her insistence that the sellers gave her a good price despite the fact that she was a“white girl.” Wherever I go in Freetown people call out “white girl” or even better “small white girl.” More often than not the intention is not to engage me in a transaction or conversation and the tone is not hostile. Rather people seem to like to note an anomalous presence and remindme of my curious identity. In the office people will call out “Maro” as they pass me in much the same way.Once the small white girl had purchased her cassava leaves she and Patricia were directed to the back of the market. Here the male counter-parts of the leaf sellers will grind your leaves for a small fee. The leaves are forced through a hand cranked device which looks like an old-fashioned coffee grinder and emerge as a green pulp. While we waited we ate handfuls of peanuts and then bought a bag which we also had ground. Next to enter our shopping basket were several handfuls of small gem-like red and green chillis, onions, okra, ogirie– fermented balls of pounded grain – and smoked fish with stiff, black skins.Fresh and smoked fish is avaliable all over Freetown from women and children who balance wide baskets of it on their heads and sing out their wears in a distinctive three-tone call– one of the first things I hear most mornings. Our last purchase was the all important “maggi.” The red and yellow twinkle of this brand of stockcube on most roadside and market stalls in Freetown indicates the significance accorded to it in Sierra Leonean cuisine.Once home we stoked up Patricia’s coal stove. The cassava leaves were then set to boil with a large quantity of thick red palm oil. Under Patricia’s boisterous instruction I skinned and boned the fish, pounded the onions, chillis and okra and at various intervals added these to the bubbling dark green mass. The end result isa thick, green stew, slick with palm oil and with a fierce kick from the chilli. It can be made with fish or meat or both and is delicious. I am told cassava leaves should be served with rice and not eba or fou fou – other starch staples.For those of you who want to try this at home– get down to Peckham where London’s Sierra Leonean community resides and all these ingredients are readily available.The recipe ishere.Coming soon… Groundnut stew!