All About the Food: Chef's Corner



My gastronomical experience in Togo is new, unexpected and different, and yet I’m infatuated with the opportunity to continue exploring. Togolese cuisine is all based on what is currently available in the market and what season of the year it is, making it the epitome of “Farm to Table.” Almost everyone in rural Togo is a farmer, so most of their diet comes from their own farm, or the money to support their diet is earned in the profits they make from selling their crops. Also, meat is expensive for families, so goat, beef, chicken, or sheep are really only enjoyed on special occasions. Protein in the Togolese diet comes from fish, peanuts, tofu, fried cheese or beans. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available in Togo, but most are only available during the rainy season, so from the December until May you are limited to enjoying only tomatoes, peppers and onions. In reality, the Togolese diet consists mostly of carbs—carbs mixed with carbs and then added on top of carbs. Togolese staples include rice, beans, rice mixed with beans, couscous, spaghetti, porridge, beignets, yams, corn, bread, and many dishes made from corn flour. The most infamous Togolese dishes—the meals that will immediately pop up in your Google search of “Togo cuisine”—are fufu and pâte, and this is not the rich pate of French cuisine but is instead a kind of cornmeal cake. These dishes, as you guessed, are heavily carb-based. Fufu is a pounded-yams dish (see recipe below) that can be accompanied by several different sauces as well as different protein options. Pâte is a dish made from corn flour—corn flour that is boiled and mixed in water and then cooled (see recipe below) and this dish is also accompanied by many different sauces with different protein options.

I will say that I am able to find some American staples in the larger cities—food like pizza, hamburgers, fries, mashed potatoes, chicken, grilled cheese, salad etc. These are Togo’s version of American comfort food, and well, it just isn’t quite the same as eating a burger in the States. And, no, Togo has yet to fulfill my intense craving for a piece of rich chocolate cake…maybe someday.

Fufu (with simple tomato sauce)
Ingredients (Serves 3-4 people)
Ø  3 yams
Ø  ½ clove of ginger
Ø  3 cloves of garlic
Ø  7-8 green hot peppers
Ø  ½ red onion
Ø  3-4 cherry tomatoes
Ø  3 small fish
Ø  1 tablespoon salt
Ø  1 chicken-flavored salt cube
Instructions
Peel and cut the yams. Rinse the cut yams in water and boil them in water for about 30 minutes. While the yams are boiling, grind ginger, garlic, green hot peppers, ¼ onion and tomatoes. Add the grinded ingredients to a separate, smaller pot and add a little bit of boiling water from the yams—cook until boiling. Once the sauce starts to boil, add your protein—usually fish. Then add salt, chopped ¼ onion, and a chicken-flavored salt cube to the sauce. Set the sauce aside and pound the yams with a giant-sized version of a mortar and pestle. Scoop the fufu into a pretty sphere, add to a bowl, and serve with the sauce. Enjoy!



Pâte (with simple adame sauce)
Ingredients (Serves 3-4 people)
Ø  4 measures of corn flour (4 large scoops)
Ø  3 handfuls of adame (adame is a leafy-green plant that is rich like spinach, but has no local language translation)
Ø  1 teaspoon dark bicarbonate powder
Ø  1 tablespoon powdered red pepper
Ø  3 small fish
Ø  7-8 green hot peppers
Ø  1 tablespoon salt
Ø  ½ red onion
Instructions
Pâte: Boil water in a large pot. Once boiling, add one measure of corn flour (one large scoop). Allow the mixture to boil again. Once boiling, add the rest of your corn flour and return to boil. Stir the mixture continuously until the flour and water has combined into a thick sauce (this step is very difficult—it requires a lot of hard stirring, so I leave this step to the Togolese Mamans). Once finished, place the pâte in a bowl or pan where it will settle into a solid as it cools.



Sauce: Arrange and clean the adame. Boil the adame in water and add a pinch of bicarbonate powder in small pot. Break up the adame leaves with the stirring spoon as it cooks. Take this pot off the heat. Add a medium-sized pot with water, powdered pepper and your protein (fish) to the charcoal stove. Once this mixture is boiling, add green hot peppers and salt. Once mixed, add the boiled adame and chopped onions.





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The local beer, Tchouk.

Rice and beans.

Porridge and beignets.

Fufu with peanut sauce and fish.

Rice with peanut sauce and fish.

Rice cooked in tomato sauce with carrots, cabbage, fish and hot peppers.

You can't buy pickles in Togo, so I made them!

The following are American foods that I've found in the larger cities.




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