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Senegal
 Photo: Peeter Viisimaa
Senegal
 Photo: Ines Gesell

Senegal: A Cookie by any Other Name
By Lily Jampol

Dinner was important, and the middle-class Senegalese family I was staying with took the meal very seriously.  Each day various traditional dishes were prepared by their fourteen year-old maid, over a large fire pit on a concrete patio and served ceremoniously in a large platter. Everyone would gather around and scoop up sections of the platter with their right hands, the mother breaking off bits of chicken and fish and gently tossing them towards my corner of plate, sparing me from detaching the meat from the bone myself.  I was grateful for their generosity and their delicious Senegalese culinary 'education,' and on the day when they suggested I cook an American meal, I agreed enthusiastically, eager to share some of the best food America has to offer.

It took an entire two days of discussion with other Americans to determine what exactly constituted “American food” and which meal would best represent it. We decided on spaghetti, but then remembered that it was actually Italian.  Hamburgers were already something of an institution in Dakar, and I refused to eat or make meatloaf or any other casserole dish, so I finally settled on chocolate-chip cookies. What could be more American and crowd pleasing than the delicious, down-home desert?

I informed the family that I would return by dusk with all the ingredients required for the cookies and that they could watch me cook. Before leaving I checked around the kitchen to make sure that they had all the necessary appliances and cookware. Oven: check. Mixing bowl: check. Spoon, spatula and baking sheet: check, check and check.  My quest began.

My first stop was a tiny corner grocery store whose shelves sagged under the weight of a multitude of cans with faded labels. I asked the clerk where I could find chocolate; and he indolently pointed to a plastic display case next to the register where a few Milka brand chocolate bars lay melting in the heat. I cringed; they would have to do.

I found flour and salt in large plastic tubs in the dusty rear of the store. I measured a few scoops into plastic bags and knotted the tops. Nearby, I found a lonely bar of French butter, also distorted from the heat. The sugar was lumpy, but and with that and the eggs, my list was nearly complete. Vanilla I could do without. The only ingredient missing was baking soda.

I figured I might be able to find baking soda in a market on the other side of Dakar. After an hour of trying to explain what I was looking for in broken French and Wolof to vendors, who usually shrugged and offered me potatoes or dried fish instead, I eventually figured out that baking soda was just called bicarbonate in Senegal.  Finally, I was pointed towards a stall containing several suspicious-looking buckets and vials. A shriveled elderly woman in a bright purple headscarf dug a rusty spoon into a small plastic container of white powder and with a toothless smile, emptied it into a crumpled piece of newspaper.   She folded it four times to retain the components.

When I arrived back at the house, the mother had invited most of the members of her extended family to watch me prepare an America meal.  The children gathered around the counter to help me chop the chocolate bars into a semblance of Tollhouse morsels. I creamed the eggs, butter, and sugar together, added the flour and a pinch of salt for good measure. I let the children help stir in the chocolate chunks. While we stirred, I taught them to say “chocolate chip cookie.” They settled on “joga geeb googie.” I let them all taste the dough, and then put the bowl in the fridge while I preheated the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

 

 

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