Gambian food (part 1!)

I think this is a popular topic- several of you have been asking me about it and Alex has written about it too.

Gambian cooking depends on the availability of ingredients, so, at least in a short stay like mine, you never eat the same thing twice. I don't think there's any point in reading the menu in Gambian eateries because most of the dishes are not available, and those that are available are not on the menu. Everything is fresh because there are few fridges and a largely unreliable electricity supply. In the compounds, people eat from one pot. I can't help thinking of the 'runt of the litter' concept here. Guests of honour, however, are tossed morsels picked and squeezed by the others into a ball.

Traditional meals are based on thick stew with bread, rice or fufu, a sticky paste made using millet or yam flour. Benachin is a combined soup-starch dish. Spices, garlic, chillis and black pepper are used for flavouring. The oils- groundnut and orange palm oil- are quite heavy. The main vegetables I see at the markets are sweet potatoes, aubergine, okra and squash. The main meats used are beef, goat and chicken, and you can buy eggs (but they're often boiled already!) easily, at any of the little cabin shops that are dotted all over the place. Peanuts are the main export product but also used lots by the locals, especially right now (late October, as they are in season), and particularly in Domada. The inner skins are translucent and the nuts sweet, tender and juicy. As I am staying by the coast, fish is a major foodsource. The flurry and transfer of produce surrounding the nightly return of the fishermen is a sight!

The most important food for me is fruit-- and I am so annoyed that I arrived a few days after the end of the mango season. We have oranges (though you can't differentiate them from small grapefruit until you cut them), but nothing beats mangoes! There are also bananas, pawpaw, imported pineapples and coconuts. If you can beat the others in the race, you can pick fruit directly from a tree.