Senegal: A Cookie by any Other Name (cont.)

Thirty minutes later when I opened the oven door, I was astonished to see several packages of dry foods; rice, flour, corn, nuts, and spices all lined up on the grates. Did I just cook the family’s winter reserve of grains?

I thrust my hands inside the cavernous oven but was astonished when I failed to detected a hint of heat.  I whirled around and asked my grinning host mother if we could remove the food and turn on the oven. She laughed and told me that the oven had never worked and was used as a storage space so that bugs could not get into the food.

How could I bake cookies if there was no oven?  I looked around at the 15 uncles, aunts, and cousins who beamed at me expectantly. I giggled nervously, and hoped somehow we would end up eating other than cookie dough.  I contemplated the prevalence of salmonella from raw eggs here.

Suddenly, I remembered the open fire pit outside. Maybe I could, somehow—who was I kidding?  Using what little knowledge of Thermodynamics I had retained from high school, I managed to fashion an oven by placing a large pot on top of the bottom tray I had borrowed from the broken oven. I formed the dough into small balls and placed them on the foil lined tray, closed the pot over them, wrapped the pot with a dishtowel, and let them 'bake.' After ten minutes I flipped the cookies over using two sticks, resealed the pot, and hoped for the best.

The results were nothing like chocolate-chip cookies. They were scorched all over, brown and hard on the outside, undercooked and doughy in the middle. They didn't rise, and the chocolate chunks had not melted. After letting them cool, I reluctantly handed the first batch over to the family members who excitedly stuffed them in their mouths.

To my surprise everyone grinned and praised me. Some of the children took the next batch around the village, telling neighbors to try the amazing, famous American cookies. I sat under the family’s delighted gaze in front of the fire pit for two hours, making friendly chatter while flipping charred, cookie nuggets with the pair of make-shift tongs.

But I was disappointed as I lay in bed that evening, having failed in the seemingly easy task of making a simple American dessert. An entire African town would now think that what I had made is what chocolate-chip cookies are supposed to taste like.  But then it occurred to me that they had had no expectations. That eating the food that I had cooked was exactly that: eating what I, the American girl, had cooked for them. They didn’t care if it was authentically American or not, or even if it tasted that good. Cooking and eating here was an expression of sharing. In a community where there was not much to go around, they shared with me every day a part of their culture through their meals, through the act of eating from one plate. I was showing my gratitude by contributing some of my own culture in a manner that everyone could understand – through food.

Later that night, the nine year-old son appeared at my door with a brown paper bag of two dozen freshly fried rose-water donuts, a traditional sweet treat in Senegal.

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