A Little Bite About Cooking

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Last Saturday I spent the day with Cecil out at their village helping her as she was preparing a big meal for an engagement celebration.  I have to be honest that I was so touched when she asked me to come and help, because for the first time I could tell that she actually wanted my help.  For the past two years I have progressed in my ability to cook like they do here, but most of the time I was as helpful to her as Ethan is to me in the kitchen.  I honestly had to relearn how to cook.  I had to learn to make and keep a fire, sort rice, steam, seal pots with cloth, cut without a cutting board or peeler, and so much more.  Although I don’t cook like this everyday at our house, I try to do it enough that it is becoming more and more natural to me.

Here are the objects that are essential to cooking here…

The only knife that you can count on finding in the kitchen and is used to peel, slice, and dice
Onions which are cooked up for just about every dish
The mortar where we grind any spices to be used, usually garlic, pepper, chili, green pepper and green onion
The bowl used for sorting rice to get all the small pieces of rock out
The pot that is use in most kitchens here. It has legs so that it can go over a fire or on top of a gas can.
The steamer that is placed on top of the pot as most things are steamed first before cooked
The cloth that is wrapped around the steamer to be sealed well and can also be used as a hot pad when moving the pot
The spoon that is used for stirring and serving
The stool that is used to sit on while cooking as most things are at ground level
The long pieces of wood that are used to build the fire and can be pushed in as the wood gets burned. If you look closely at this last picture you can see the pot, with the steamer in place and the tissue wrapped around to seal in the hot air.
The peas that we steamed Saturday, which we also covered with a plastic bag to keep the hot air in
Lastly the bowls and serving plates of different sizes to accommodate the number of people you have eating that day

Just a little of fun info about what we use when cooking here!

Comments

  2. Can we get a cooking lesson when you come back to the states? You could take pictures of our efforts and then your friends in Senegal could laugh at our “skills” 🙂

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