Guineans are not known for their food. My Senegalese host-mother told me I would starve in Guinea and promised to give me a supply of sugared peanuts to take with me. Our Sierra-Leonian friend, Nana, scoffed at their inability to use vegetables. Food, for the most part, was limited to rice and sauce. Sauce being leaf sauce (sweet potato or manioc leaves were the norm), peanut sauce, or soup sauce. Up in Siguiri, most of these were served with dried little fish bits. If we were particularly lucky, soup sauce came with lakudu, also known as peanutbutter fishballs. These dreadful creations were chock full of bones and didn't have the flavour to make up for the effort involved in eating them. Not to mention that they were a favourite of our baker, Labe's, second wife, who served them to us with frightening regularity. Aside from rice and sauce, there were other varieties of street food. My personal favourite was nono (sour milk) with little millet balls and soso , black-eyed beans best eaten with a piece of baguette to sop up the copious amounts of fish oil (the oil was the best part). Then there were the girls who wandered around with pots of sadi and moni on their heads, always ready to serve you up 100 FG worth of rice or millet porridge. Who said that the US invented fast food? For the more adventurous, there was always athieke, steamed, grated manioc served with oil and msg, the West African equivalent of french fries. Our friend, Hawa, was an athieke lady, but since Kristin got dysentery the day after eating at her stall (probably no correlation), the association was too strong, and we stopped eating there. We didn't really miss it. Thirsty? There were usually women selling bags of water or gingembre (ginger juice). Drinking out of a bag is a necessary skill in Guinea. But if you didn't trust the water, there were always oranges. Two or three for 100 FG, peeled to keep the pith intact, squeeze while sucking the juice at the same time, voila! fresh-squeezed orange juice. Supposably not very good for the teeth though. I always liked cashew fruit during hot season to quench my thirst. Kristin complained that they made her mouth fuzzy.
But how did I really feel about Guinean food? Here is a poem I wrote during one of our 'enforced creativity sessions'. Nothing like boredom to induce creativity:
An Ode to Manioc Leaf Sauce
A steaming plate of rice and manioc leaf sauce
- my favourite sauce, a delicate shade of off-green
- that enticing flavour of peanut butter
and a certain “je ne sais quoi”.
It’s consistency is somewhere near that of mud
- it can be satisfyingly smeared on my mound of rice.
With a spoon, of course.
If we’re lucky, there are little pieces of
dried fish- Kristin particularly loves the bones.
They go down smoothly, tracing a sharp
line into her throat.
She thinks she will choke,
but I know better.
No one chokes on manioc leaf sauce.
It’s name is so eloquent,
just slips off my tongue.
Fidajii. Leaf water. Sauce de feuilles.
Words to shape your lips around,
in the same way that one’s lips
caress a spoon of rice and sauce
tongue eagerly anticipating the
explosion of flavour,
the gagging reflex in the back of the throat.
Spoon scarping the plastic bowl
mixing up the last little bit
so it can go down swiftly.
Stones, bones, and all.
Does all of this leave you feeling inspired to try cooking some Guinean food? Check out the recipes at the Friends of Guinea website .