Caldou in the Casamance

Fish and rice. There’s just so much you can do with it, and living on the coast of Sénégal, I get a lot of it. Living in Dakar, a city situated on the Cap Vert peninsula, it makes sense that fish is not only widely available but serves as a critical part of the food economy of the country. I mean, the national dish of Sénégal is ceebu jën - which literally means rice and fish. For this reason, too, the background of this blog is the classic red ceebu jën. Having eaten both the red and white versions of the dish countless times, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the concept. But, as I mentioned in a previous entry, I am always learning through my experiences with food. Turns out, fish and rice is no an exception to the rule.

On a recent trip to the Casamance, I discovered caldou. Before getting into the food, though, let me take a moment give you some context. The Casamance is the southern-most region of Sénégal just below the Gambia. Since ­­­­1982 the region has been in open rebellion, with the majority ethnic group of the region, the Joola, claiming that the Casamance should be its own independent state separate from Wolof-dominated Sénégal. Despite this ongoing conflict, the government has taken measures to ensure that much of the Basse-Casamance (click here for a map) is secure in order to protect the thriving tourist industry. Recently, a couple of my friends and I headed there by boat and in many ways, it was genuinely like entering a new country. The Joola, a largely Christian population while 95% of the country remains Muslim, clearly have a much stronger presence in the region. This dynamic along with the fact that the climate is more tropical and receives more rain than in most other parts of the country, creates quite a distinct food culture.

So back to the food.  Caldou is essentially the same concept as ceebu jën – that is, it’s fish and rice – and yet, it is a completely different dish.  Pierre Thiam, a Senegalese chef and author of Yolele! Recipes from the Heart of Senegal, explains that caldou is derived from the Portuguese name for clear soup, called caldo. With a mild and relatively simple onion sauce in comparison to the spicy and complex flavors of ceebu jën, caldou is lighter on the oil too. Instead, its heavy on the lemon and pepper and when we had it, the onions were cooked for a long time with more water and a bit of tomato, so that they melted in your mouth and blended well with the sauce and rice. The picture below is of my first caldou experience. Judging from the glow of the room and my face, the dish was pretty awesome. However, it does also make it a bit hard to see the food.

Here's a better picture of the actual food from our second day of caldou. 

Let’s break down the two main components of the dish. The fish we ate on the trip was incredible, and contributed to my instant love of caldou. We mostly stuck around the Casamance River, which meant most of the fish we ate also came from this salt-water body of water. At one of the student hotels we stayed in on the Island of Karabane in the river, I was lucky enough to see one of the hotel workers reel in two giant fish right off the beach. They’re pictured here.

On the left: A 'Law croaker' (awesome), known in Wolof as taunon and in French as otolithe 

On the right: A 'Lesser African threadfin,' known in Wolof as siket mbao and in French as capitaine.

Another new thing for me – rice from the Casamance. Since the region gets a lot more rain than in other parts of the country, many people rely on cultivating rice, and we were lucky to have gotten to eat some. The rice was much fluffier and lighter, and you could definitely taste its freshness, unlike the broken rice in Dakar that is often imported from Asia (broken rice pictured on the right).

 I thought it was kind of strange that such delicious rice was available locally in Casamance and yet was still not reaching the markets of Dakar. I asked a couple of people about it, and while people from the area are not likely the most objective sources, they seemed frustrated that not more was being done on the part of the government to make this local rice more widely available and reduce Senegal’s foreign dependence on rice.

Politics aside, I’m now back in Dakar and craving some caldou. So I went to the market and someone selling fish helped me pick out a good type for caldou. Courtesy of Peter Thiam and his cookbook, Yolele! Recipes from the Heart Senegal, here’s the recipe I followed for the dish (pictures are my own):

2 firm, white-flesh fish (carp, tilapia, or bass) (1 1/2 pounds each)

I used a small, white-fleshed fish with a Wolof name
I've already forgotten

salt and freshly ground black pepper

juice of 2 lemons

3 cups water

2 cups basmati rice I used the broken white rice found in Dakar

1 tablespoon peanut or canola oil

1 small onion, sliced into ¼-inch rounds

1 tomato, chopped

1 tablespoon fish sauce or one 2-inch piece guedj (dried, smoked fish)

5 to 6 okra pods (optional) I didn’t use them

1 habanero pepper or really any other really hot pepper

1. With a sharp knife, cut 2 or 3 slashes on each side of the fish (about 1 in deep). Rub salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice onto the outside of the fish and inside the slashes. Allow to marinate 1 hour in the refrigerator.

2. 

2. Meanhwhile, bring 3 cups water to a boil in a pot with a lid. Add the rice, return to a boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer until water is absorbed, 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the variety. Remove from heat.

3. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Sauté the onion and tomato until onion is soft but not brown.

4. Add the fish and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil.

5. Reduce heat and add the fish sauce or guedj. Simmer until half-cooked, about 10 minutes. Add the okra pods and the habanero and continue cooking until tender, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add the remaining lemon juice to the pan.

6. Serve the fish on a platter with the sauce, vegetables, and rice on the side. 

Bisimillah! 

Moon nanu ceere ak Oumoul (Making ceere with Oumoul)

I have always wanted to learn how to make Senegalese couscous, known as ceere. Turning sunguf (the millet flour) into ceere is quite an ardous and lengthy process, traditionally done by hand by women. As a result the art of ceree making, known as moon, is slowly dying out in the city, as more and more women who work or go to school during the day opt for purchasing ready-made ceere that you can purchase in the markets or in the evenings around the neighborhoods. Knowing full-well that this skill is clearly not something that could be learned overnight, I decided nonetheless to push the suggestion made casually by my Wolof teacher to use one of our class periods to learn how to make Senegalese couscous by hand.

Sunguf, purchased from the market by the kilo and wrapped up in a brown paper bag to take home. 

So I recently went to the market and bought 2 kilos of sunguf, borrowed an inde (a metal steamer to rest on top of boiling water) from the boutique down the street from us, and invited Oumoul, our Wolof teacher, to Giulia and my house for class. We still didn’t have all the right materials, as we were missing a giant calabash (a bowl made from a huge gourd), to manually mix the flour with a bit of water to make the individual couscous balls. As a result, Giulia and I simply ended up watching Oumoul struggle with a poor substitute for a calabass while trying to explain what she was doing. When asked how much water to add for the right consistency, she said you just have to know. When asked how long to steam the ceere over water, she said you just have to know. Clearly, this is not something a toubab can take one lesson on, write down the recipe, and then be able to replicate it next time. Oh well, for now at least, I will have to settle for the still-delicious option of buying ready-made ceere from the lady down the street from us. Plus, we still have great step-by-step pictures of the process. 

This is Oumoul, looking beautiful and hiding well the fact that she's super frustrated we don't have a calabash. 

The process of moon, mixing the sunguf and water by hand until reaching the right consistency and balls start to form.  

Then, the balls were transferred to a sifter that we shook to even out the size of the couscous balls and make them all more uniform.

This is the ideal size of ceere post-sifting.

Finally, the ceere was placed in the inde over boiling water and covered with a cloth to let steam. At some point Oumoul turned the ceere over to make sure both sides were evenly steamed. 

This account is way over-simplified and does not do ceere nor the process of moon justice. Clearly, learning about Senegalese food is a constant work-in-progress. But fortunately, there continues to be more and more delicious reasons to keep trying. Here’s the final result of our ceere endeavors: ceere with a tomato-based sauce of chicken with cassava, carrots, turnips, squash, and cabbage. And of course, a lot of fresh hot pepper. Bon appétit! 

FOOD!

FOOD. Its what I think about everytime I have a spare moment and it just so happens that the food culture in Senegal seems to really support that mentality, so why not translate these thoughts into writing? So, voila, my wonderful experiences of growth and knowledge - through food, that is.

I couldn't begin a post like this anywhere but in the markets. Markets were one of the first things I mentioned in my previous blogs, but my love for them has only grown and deepened with time. And while I am kind of joking, I also really am not. Markets, for me, continue to be a way to engage with and participate in my community here, something that I am starting to realize is incredibly valuable for me in order to feel rooted to a place – especially when that place is not home. It is also an excellent opportunity for me to practice Wolof, as that is completely the language of these markets. Plus, people seem to think at worst, that I am some kind of hilarious joke when I start off in Wolof (which is really fine by me at this point, especially if it gets me a good deal), or at best, someone who is invested in figuring out how food and market systems work in Dakar. And I’m sure in most instances both portrayals are pretty accurate.

I think I have already posted these two photos already in a previous blog, but I’ll bring them back just so that you all can have a visual idea, at least, of these markets.

My friend and roommate Giulia and I are weekly shopping buddies at Marché Tilène, not too far from the large university where I attend classes. Now 4 months into my year here, we have our weekly “vegetable ladies,” 2 wonderful women (one pictured above with my mom), who give us fair, reasonable prices on a full selection of veggies and who always throw in something free for us. Last week, I spent 2,000 CFA on produce (about $4) for the entire week, and got a bag of free, fresh hot peppers thrown into the deal. Now that is what I call fair and reasonable prices.  

  

These green beans are in season right now. On a recent trip back from St. Louis (a city on an island in northern Senegal), I bought these on the side of the road for 500CFA/kilo (about $1).

Giulia is pictured here next to the stand of the woman who she buys her “feuille” (greens) from. Since Giulia first bought from her for our Thanksgiving meal in November, she has not only been helping Giulia out with recipes, but has been actually leading her about the market to help her find the other ingredients. Now I feel like everytime we go, we find a new group of people who help the “toubabs” (white people) discover yet another little nuance about Senegalese cooking.

The latest addition to my steadily growing knowledge on Senegalese and West African food has been the variety of grains available to us at these markets, outside of rice. While the national dish 'ceebu jën' (fish and rice) kind of sets the tone for a culture that definitely loves its rice, there are so many other grains and carbs available at the market that I am just starting to discover. I thought I'd provide you all with a little on what I’ve been learning about:

1. Fonio – recently found some dried this week. Its apparently one of the oldest native grains of Africa, and for some reason, still relatively unknown.  This seems weird to me, especially given its potential for alleviating the growing issues of food security in this part of the world. Apparently, the Dogon people of Mali believed that the universe grew out of a single fonio seed, to give you a sense of the importance this grain has had for many peoples in West Africa. It is also highly nutritious, grows well in typically difficult growing conditions, and grows ridiculously fast – reaching maturity in as little as 6-8 weeks. We ate it like couscous (and the taste kind of reminds of what a whole-grain couscous might taste like) the night I cooked it, with a spicy peanut and eggplant sauce. I didn't think to take a picture, so here's one courtesy of Google Images: 

2. Casava – also known as yucca or manioc. Prior to my arrival in Senegal, I had no idea how important this crop is to much of Sub-Saharan Africa. There are just so many things you can do with it! The tuberous root is used as a vegetable in a lot of Senegalese dishes, but it can also be pound into flour, coucous, and processed into a variety of other products. The leaves are eaten too, particularly in the “sauce feuilles” (greens sauce) that Giulia likes to make so much. Anyway, this week in the market, I asked someone about cassava flour because I wanted to try and make fufu, a West African side dish that is either a yam, cassava, or plantain paste then rolled into balls. Its super yummy. Anyway, I asked one woman who directed me to a certain part of the market, where a couple other men finally directed me to a Guinean vendor (b/c fufu is West African, but not really Senegalese) who thought it was both wonderful and hysterical that I wanted yucca flour to make fufu.  I have a picture of it here, though this is actually yam fufu.

3. Millet – one of my favorite grains here. Healthy, lots of fiber, and super filling. Typically in Dakar and throughout Senegal, millet is eaten in the form of a couscous called ‘ceere’ (roughly pronounced like ‘ch-ai-ray’), or a number of different porridges eaten with sweetened yogurt that really only differ by the size of the cousous that is used. (called ‘laax,’ ‘funde,’ or ‘thiakry’ in order of largest couscous size to smallest and pictured below).  All options are delicious, though the process to make the couscous is long and laborious. However, you’ll have to wait for my next blog post to read more about this process, as my Wolof teacher, Giulia, and I are planning a Wolof class where we learn to make the couscous by hand. More details to follow!

funde ('fun-day'), with sweetened yogurt 

called sow ('so')

laax, (pronunciation: la-kh)

       thiakry ('chalk-rie')

The Foodie in Me

After routinely using my Rotary blog as a way to pontificate on the subject of food, I have finally decided to face my obsession head-on and start a food blog. I hope to use this platform as a way to document my culinary experiences in Senegal and share them with the blogger world (or at least my family and friends), as I delve deeper into Senegalese culture through food.

The last post from my "Shani in Senegal" blog could not, in good faith, remain where it was. I had to move it to this blog with all the others to follow on food. So, without further ado, I present to you my first post for the new blog, aptly named: 'FOOD'!

P.S. How many times can I use the word 'food' in a post??