Katy Murtaugh’s Next Big Adventure!

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(If you’re unfamiliar with absurd levels of detail, refer to earlier baking post, or see below.)

 

A Trip to the Market

Step One: Get Ready

- à la Guinéene:

  Put on some of your nicest clothes (lots of people will see you)

- à l’Américaine:

  Put on some of your dirtiest clothes (you will get dirty and laundry ain’t easy)

 

Step Two: Know what to buy, how much to buy and what to pay for it

Ingredient                    Price                            Quantity                      Total

Fresh Fish                   9,000 FG/kilo               1 k (3 fish)                   9,000

Peanut Butter              3,000 FG/sack (1c?)   3 sacks                       9,000

Potatoes                      5,000 FG/kilo               1 k                               5,000

Onions                        1,000/bunch (5-6)        1 bunch                       1,000

Peanut Oil                   1,000/sack (2c?)         1 sack                         1,000

Tiny Dried Shrimp       500/little bag (2Tb?)    2 bags                         1,000

Maggi Cubes               250 each                     4                                  1,000

Tomato Paste             500/little bit (1/4c?)      a little bit                        500

Piment                         500/bunch (4-5)          1 bunch                         500

Rice                             6,500/pile (2c?)           2 piles                       13,000

 

* Salt! I have a serious inventory of salt sent by my mother, so have yet to have occasion to buy it in the market, have no idea of the price.

** 1 USD = 4,500 GF

 

Step Three: Learn Local Language

Market language is local language. Market ladies will laugh and laugh at your attempts and they will love you for it and you may even get a cadeau out of it. There is little I find more satisfying than getting a sincere exclamation of surprise or joy or amusement out of a market lady. Plus, you might have to tell her how much the change is supposed to be.

 

Step Four: Dive In

It’s time to maneuver the crowds of mamas, old men, salt-filled-wheel-barrow drivers, megaphone-toting medication salesmen, kids with bananas/gateaux/cold-drinks-in-plastic-bags on their heads and piles of cow poop. Avoiding eye contact with the young male vendors who are likely to say “Porto, come here” is advised if you want to keep your general mood pleasant. Greeting the women and old men though is not only fun, but necessary. Woe be to him who tries to get a good price on something without first asking after this stranger’s family.

 

Step Five: Lug Everything Home

Be grateful that you remembered to your bring your good plastic bag with you (Guinean market plastic bags have the sturdiness of soap bubbles). If you are accompanied by a Guinean they will not let you carry anything yourself, lest you should become any more awkward than you already are in the midst of the market or in the street (hitting your head on corrugated tin roofs, slipping in mud, overly politely trying to step around something or someone).

 

Finally, We Get To Cook!

 

Step One: Pre-Heating

First off, get out your handy charcoal burner, load it up and light those babies. If you don’t have a fancy American Bic, you’ll need to use market-bought matches, which are either head-less or simply burn the head up without ever creating a flame. We are making rice and sauce, of course, so you need two handy charcoal burners (though only light one for now, it’ll be a bit before we’re ready to start the rice). Just like Kingsford, the coals are nice and hot when they turn white. You’ll need one rock in each corner to support the weight of the pot.

 

All the while remember to try to turn off your inner voice that is telling you how much wood is cut down every year to make charcoal, which can be sold at a higher price than wood itself, using a process that actually wastes more wood than charcoal is produced (apparently).

 

          

Step Two: Scaling, Gutting, Cleaning the Fish

There is no such thing as boneless, skinless anything in this country (look forward to a future Chicken posting). But, if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford fresh fish instead of the scary, un-yummy dried or smoked varieties, then you don’t complain about the occasional anatomy lesson.

 

Scrape off the scales with a knife and slice off the fins (we will be cooking the fish with the skin on). Cut each fish into three big chunks, slicing each one open along the bottom and pulling out the guts. Remember cutting boards are not allowed (because they are non-existent), only dull knives and the good sense God gave you to cut away from yourself (or not). Bones? Not to worry, we will judiciously bite into each one and fish it out of our mouths when eating the finished sauce.

 

Rinse the fish a couple of times to get rid of all that icky blood.

 

Step Three: Heating the Oil

Put a big ol’ marmite (heavy, 2-handled pot) on the hot coals and let the marmite itself heat up for a minute. Take your plastic bag of peanut oil and lightly touch it to the bottom of the pot, melting the plastic and releasing the oil, lift the bag away as you squeeze the remaining contents out. Melted plastic on the bottom of your pot? You’re in Guinea, don’t worry about it. Get the oil nice and hot.

 

          

Step Four: Salting, Frying the Fish

Generously salt the chunks of fish (as one should salt anything, generously that is). Gently place the chunks of fish in the oil; there’s not a lot of oil, so only put in enough fish to cover the bottom of the pot, saving the heads for last (no idea why). Stir the fish occasionally until all sides of all pieces are nicely brown and crispy. Once all the fish is fried, set it aside and remove the pot from the coals, leaving the oil as is.

 

Step Five: Peeling, Cutting the Potatoes

Remember, no cutting boards and also no peelers. Otherwise, I think this is a pretty straightforward step, although I haven’t to be able to replicate the Guinean knife-peeling technique (whether for potatoes or oranges) which is usually short, quick strokes away from the body at an angle almost parallel with the floor (and by “floor,” of course I mean the ground — as an aside: indoor kitchens are a rarity given that electricty is inconsistent at best and in most of the country non-existent, when cooking over fire, whether wood or charcoal, outside is the place to be, consider yourself lucky if there’s at least a roof over your head).

 

Step Six: “Pilé”-ing Piment, Onions and Dried Shrimp

First of all, the verb “piler” refers to the action of pounding something into a paste (or a powder) in a wooden mortar that sits on the ground with a wooden pestle. It’s the original Cuisinart and many different textures and consistencies can be achieved, if you know what you’re doing (which I don’t). Other than trying to speak Pulaar, trying to pilé is one of the surest ways to feel like the funniest person in the world (and to get oil splattered on your pants).

 

So, today what we’re pilé-ing is piment, onions and tiny dried shrimp until it is a fine paste. Piments are Guinean hot peppers. I’ve seen a couple of different varieties but the one in the pictures is by far the most common. They are quite hot, but also have a nice bright red flavor (not like a green-jalapeno flavor). As a condiment on the side, you’ll find minced fresh piment (delish) or dried piment pilé-ed to varying degrees (good for a little kick, but doesn’t add much flavor). In sauces they are usually added to both the sauce itself (pilé-ed and mixed in with the other wet ingredients, usually one if I’m around and two if they’re cooking for themselves) and then a couple are added near the end to be cooked whole for anyone who is looking for a little more heat to partake of. Bad idea: putting one of those whole cooked piments in your mouth, just don’t, really.

 

I don’t really know the role of those tiny dried shrimp. Once pilé-ed they look like a couple tablespoons of dust and don’t have an obvious impact on either flavor or texture, but in a country where money doesn’t come easy, I imagine they’re not for nuthin’.

 

Step Seven: Mixing the Peanut Butter, Tomato Paste and Water

As with everything else there’s no exact math here, just eyeballed amounts that balance what you’ve got on hand and how many mouths you have to feed. Also as with most everything else, the more expensive it is (i.e., the less water), the better it is. I’d say, from what I’ve seen, you need at least twice as much water as peanut butter and can stretch your sauce out from there as much as you need to by adding more water. The amount of tomato paste is…you know…some.

 

Step Eight: Combining, Cooking All with Fish-y Oil

To your peanut-butter/tomato-paste/water mixture, now add the ingredients you pilé-ed and the potatoes.

 

Put your marmite with the remaing oil from fish-frying back on the coals and heat the oil. Add your sauce and cover. Once it comes to a boil, it continues uncovered.

 

Step Nine: Heating Water for the Rice

It’s rice time! Get that second charcoal burner going and a big marmite half full of water on it heating up.

 

For as much rice as is eaten in this country, and for as much as the price has increased (more than doubled in less than a year), rice is a hot topic. There are many issues involved, which I am not knowledgeable enough to expound upon, but to give you an idea of how hot a topic it is here are some of the issues that come up in rice discussions: importing rice to a developping country that is capable of growing enough itself, not subsidizing the cost of rice (leaving the cost of rice at a level where some families are unable to make more than one meal in a day), a population so dependent on rice that alternatives aren’t exploited (lack of creativity? lack of knowledge? preference?). All I know is it is a big deal, and everyone can tell you the price of a sack of rice at any given time, and can tell you how much they make each month relative to the price of a sack of rice.

 

             

Step Ten: Picking Through, Washing the Rice

Well, if you’re a patronne like me, you can afford the “good” rice — a reasonably political statement by which I mean rice that is clean with fine, white grains, but which is also unfortunately rice that has been imported and which at the time cost 6,500 GF and now costs 7,500 GF per pile (a little more than 2 cups, I think). The upside: no rocks on which to break a tooth, essentially no work before you’re able to cook it. The downside: supporting someone else’s economy and lining the pockets of corrupt importers and government officials. (Incidentally, Guinea’s largest rice importer, or so I am told, is currently building a vacation home in my town in the form of a cement palace with 15 ballroom-sized rooms.) Okay, I might be bordering on territory that is inappropriate for an apolitical Peace Corps volunteer and so I will end by saying I should seriously suck it up and spend the 20 minutes to clean my Guinean-grown rice rather than buying the imported stuff. Go Local.

 

This day Oumou picked through the ethically tainted rice for the few un-shucked hulls and then rinsed it twice in water.

 

Step Eleven: Cooking the Rice

When the water is boiling, add the rice and cover. Check in a while and add water as necessary. Stuff any guilt down to where you can’t see it and make mental note to boycott imported rice. (Just by the by, I don’t actually prepare rice at home and so this was my first encounter with personally grappling with rice realities.)

 

          

Step Twelve: Finishing the Sauce

Guineans will all say, for no matter what kind of sauce, you know when it’s done when you see “the oil come out.” I’ve asked so many people now in so many different situations, that I do it now just to chuckle at hearing the same exact thing. When the oil starts to appear on the surface that means that a sufficient amount of water has boiled off. Assuming that the potatoes are fully cooked, you can now add the fried fish and the whole piments (if the potatoes are not fully cooked or almost so, then add more water). Crumble and sprinkle the Maggi cubes in. Taste; add salt. Let continue to boil for a little while, softening the piments. Remove from fire. Wrappers of Maggi cubes serve as perfectly adequate pot holders, if you’re Guinean.

 

Step Thirteen: Watering the Coals

When finished, dump the charcoal out on the ground and sprinkle water over them to stop them burning.

 

Let’s Eat!

Step One: Portioning for Many

At this point it is time to divide everything up for the various people who will be eating it. It is likely that you have been preparing not only for yourself and those present, but for your brother who lives on his own up the street and a few others here and there, and there’s also those Americans who have been salivating for the last two hours. So, the sauce gets divded up among several containers with a politcal savvy informing how many of what kinds of pieces of fish go into whose bowls (mid-sections being more desirable than heads, for example) and which bowls the whole piments end up in. The rice, too, will be divided among several containers and will always be very pleasantly molded into a lovely dome shape even if it is to be massacred in a matter of seconds. The political savvy also goes towards informing proportions, no matter how much you protest, women and kids will make a little sauce go a long way, often filling their stomachs with mostly rice.

 

Step Two: Serving the Americans in a Room By Themselves

Another norm that is hard to break is the expectation that we, as Americans, will be served and will eat in a room all by ourselves, even if there is just one of us. It is normal here for men and women to eat separately, for kids to eat separately, I guess we’re just one more category that eats on its own.

 

          

Step Three: Pig Out

I am of the opinion that a finely made sauce such as this one is not meant to savoured, it is meant to be devoured. And, remember, you’re in a room by yourself, so go for it! You should have already practiced your profuse local-language thank-you’s, so that you are able to utter them through your peanut-sauce stupor. Burping is not only acceptable, but appropriate and appreciated — burps away!

 

 

Oh, intrepid blog reader, once again, good on ya’ for making it to the end of this long, detailed entry!

 

We all know that food is culture and I now find myself in a place where I am hit over the head by that fact every single day. Stay tuned…will be cutting the throat of a chicken soon and learning the special process for making fonio (one of those ill-exploited rice alternatives)…many more details to come, I’m sure!