I am so excited to present to you a good friend of mine. Her name is Marlys. We met through Foodie Friends Friday. I know you are all familiar with that group of wonderful women aren’t you?
She has such an interesting story to tell all of us and some great recipes too! I hope you enjoy reading her story and getting to know her a little better.
Hi, everyone my name is Marlys from This and That and so excited to be with you on this journey. I was so excited when Cynthia asked me to write about Togo, West Africa on her Around the World in 80 Sundays… I think this is a neat way to see the world. I thought I would first give you some history on how and why I now about Togolese food and cooking.
Africa is one place in the world that I always wanted to travel to and even more after I read Roots by Alex Haley. I dreamt of elephants and giraffes, probably a couple of my favorite animals. In 2005, that dream came true… well, at that time not to see wild animals, but to see a part of Africa. Our church was doing missionary work in Togo and my cousin had been there and met her then husband. I went back with her when she was getting married and you will never guess it, I met my husband there… A Togolese and something that I told my cousin I would not do find and marry a man from there as she knew how difficult it was to have a long distance relationship. Well, I didn’t listen to her and a little over a year later I was flying to Togo to marry my husband. I spent a total of 7 weeks in Togo with my husband after we got married and then came home here to the United States to wait for him. I made another 4 trips there over the next 2 years as that is how long it took him to get a visa to join me here ~ 25 months after we got married.
Although I didn’t learn to cook any African food while I was there, I enjoyed every mouth full and loved being immersed in the culture. Everyone was amazed that I was able to eat the food, my husband included and especially that I was able to eat with my hands. It is very common there to eat a lot of the foods with your hands or I should say hand. You only eat with right hand as your left is considered dirty. That is still something that I have difficult with and my husband is known to swat my hand when I pick a food item up with my left hand, although my hand is still not used to dipping in hot sauces or soups. The food items that are eaten with your hand are: rice with sauces, fufu, which is a pounded yam and you take a small piece of it and roll it in your fingers and use it as a scoop to eat your soup or corn porridge which is made out of corn and you eat it the same way as you would fufu but with a sauce instead of soup. It is also normal for a family to eat out of one bowl or plate. Before everyone eats a dish of water and hand soap is passed around for everyone to cleanse their hand before eating and you don’t dry your hand and then once you are done eating, water and soap is passed around to wash your hands, although you do get a towel this time. Another thing I noticed is that they use their right hand when cooking, like a spatula, even when cooking hot foods. Maybe that is a reason their skin is much tougher then us wimpy whites.
I will show you some pictures of some of the ways that cooking is done in Togo and a bakery that I went to and also some of the different types of foods. After these pictures I will leave you with a recipe for Okra sauce made a couple of different ways that you can eat either with rice or corn porridge.
1.
Corn porridge with a sauce made from green leaves called jute or ademe. You can also use spinach
2. How I cooked my meals when I was in Togo as a new bride. All meals where Americanized.
3. Fufu with an eggplant and fish soup.
4. Mortar and pestle with African yams
5. African couscous with a tomato based sauce.
6. Goat soup made in Togo.
7. Fried yams with and tomato based sauce and smoked salmon.
Some of the recipes can be found on my blog if you are interested.
1. Cooking over an open fire outside. Fire pit was made of clay.
2. Baking oven at a bakery.
3. Baking done in a bakery.
4. Mixer and cooling rack.
5. Cooking goat soup at an open market.
6. Carrying water.
Now for the recipe for Okra sauce:
I have the sauces numbered backwards so bear with me. The third one is made with only fresh ingredients and served cold and the rest have some more spices and are heated. So I will talk about number 3 first.
3. Cold okra sauce
10 okra cut in small pieces – cooked in water until soft and cooled
1 garlic clove
1 inch ginger
1 tomato
1/4 cup onion
Hot pepper to taste
2- 3 dried smoke fish (these we get from Africa and are the size of sardines)
Smoked salmon ( as much or little as you want)
Salt to taste
Place ginger and garlic in mortar and using pestle and mash until very soft and mushy. Add okra, tomato, onion, hot pepper and smoked fish and do the same. This can be done to the consistency that you would like it. Add salt to taste.
To make 2. Warm Okra Sauce
Place cold okra sauce in sauce pan over medium- high flame or heat (we have a gas oven). Add 1 cube of chicken maggi and cook until hot. Cook for approximately 10 minutes so all the flavors are combined.
To make 3. Red Okra Sauce
To warm sauce: add ½ can Mackerel in Tomato Sauce and 1 tsp Maggi liquid sauce. Cook over medium-high heat for approximately 10 minutes.
All these measurements are an estimate. Africans do not measure and go by taste and feel. I prefer the green sauces and my husband likes the red sauce. This can be eaten with rice or corn porridge as in the picture. Corn porridge is made with corn flour and water and cooked and stirred until thick then placed in a bowl that has been rinsed in water and the bowl is turned upside down on a plate and the mound of corn porridge sits on the plate.
Thank you for letting me spend a little time with you on Feeding Big. I enjoyed it and I hope you get a little flavor of Togolese cooking. Oh! By the way I did get to see some elephants up close and personal in a wild life reserve. We were about 50 feet away and did you know that if you are either on a slight elevation either higher or lower than an elephant they don’t realize you are there. Just a little tidbit if you are ever chased by an elephant.
Cynthia what a great way to learn about other countries and their cuisine. Kudos to you and I can’t wait be a part of this. Thanks Maryls for your story and the romance of it all!
Cynthia ~ thanks for asking me to do this post… and sharing it. I am nominating you for the liebster award, you can go to my blog to find out what it is about..http://marlys-thisandthat.blogspot.com/2012/12/liebster-award.html
I love this article. It is so amazing the BIG differences in cooking and eating. We are so spoiled to be able to hop in the car and pick up our food at a window and eat in the car!
What an AWESOME share! We have done some around the world cooking activities & it’s such an amazing way to learn about culture…
So fun! Love trying different foods from all over!