I recently bumped into a neighbor, just in time, when she was mercilessly lashing out at her 12-year-old house-help for being poor at cooking. “Look! The soup is so salty. The meat is not properly cooked. The rice is too soft. I can taste particles in the food. What kind of person are you?” she yelled, scaring the life out of the little girl who stood trembling before her.
You will always hear people say, “cooking is an art.” Indeed, it is an art that requires time and attention to learn. I mean, quite slim are the chances of one jumping into the kitchen without the necessary orientations, to say “oh…today, I’m going to cook palm butter.” Of course, that person would only be entertaining themselves with the heat in the kitchen, but will never be able to nail that sumptuously tasty dish. The art of cooking, to many, seems odd even before they attempt it. However, it is an art whose elements are very easy to define. You can prepare a sumptuous dish using different methods, with a variety of utensils, ingredients and seasonings.
Liberians create wonderful dishes with palm oil, dried cassava fish, crabs, snails, and other locally-available ingredients. Likewise, many other African countries create fantastic dishes with fresh tomatoes and mixed veggies (as in Ghana), yam, cassava, and corn flour, and chilies. The tomatoes of Ghanaian cuisine, cassava leaf of Liberian dishes and peanut stew of Guinea are all distinctly unique to each of these countries.
Growing up, our mothers would say, it is important for the girl child to come in contact with the kitchen as early as possible. Otherwise, the assumption was, cooking would become a problem for her as a grown woman. Indeed, you have to be there to see how your mom does the seasoning of the food. Don’t get it wrong. Our mothers are not advocating that girls be confined to becoming nothing else but domestic chefs. Their wish, however, is to see their daughters obtain superb skill and subsequent wisdom in the fine art of food preparation.
For instance, when mommy is preparing palm butter and you are not around, how would you know the different procedures and processes involved? You have to be there with her, to know the quantity of palm nuts per what amount of water involved; when and how are seasonings and all other spices being added, and even how she stirs the soup to avoid the fish from breaking. These are all important steps that you can only learn when you are there with her.
Above all, you have to be interested in learning to cook. What makes the food tasty actually depends on the seasoning and preparation style. No matter how many ingredients – ranging from the different kinds of meats and seafood as well as other exotic elements you might have in there---if the food is not properly seasoned, the taste will NOT hit the right spot.
There are some women who are fond of cooking elaborate meals. Unfortunately, with all the ingredients that make up the body of the dish, it goes nowhere without the soul – the seasoning, as well as the purpose. The combination of the different seasonings matters to a great deal. It is not only about adding salt, cubes and curry together. It is about knowing exactly what goes with what.
Like any traditional housewife, for many young Liberian women, cooking is simply another household chore that needs to be done with speed. However, it undoubtedly runs the risk of being flavorless, lacking resourcefulness or happiness in its execution.
The old-school rile is “do it with lots of love in your heart.” A typical example would be a tasteless, watery and salty cassava leaf prepared and served with overcooked butter rice. Just imagine that.
You need not be a professional chef with a culinary degree and years of employment in various types of restaurants with other master chefs, to become a fine culinary artist. You first need to appreciate the art and show some interest in learning it as you grow. Note that some African societies are firmly grounded in the conviction that “a woman is incomplete if she cannot cook well.” There have been, and still are, many, many women whose husbands abandoned or divorced them simply because they “couldn’t cook”. That shows the degree of seriousness attached to being a good culinary artist among our people.
It is real. A woman could lose her home simply because, over time, her stew was found to be too watery, or too salty, just tasteless. In such cases, she would be politely sent to her parents with the message that “she needs to learn some more how to become a woman capable of taking care of her husband’s belly.” And that would be the end of that marriage.
When this happens, it is considered a grave ‘humiliation’ brought to the woman’s family and, in most cases, the mother is to be blamed for not grooming her daughter properly. If she (the mother) doesn’t take care, she would also be a victim because the father will never relent in holding her solely responsible for tainting his image among his kinsmen. She, too, could lose her marriage fort that. (On the flip side, however, what kind of father would give his daughter’s hand in marriage without ever tasting her cooking?).
To avoid such a situation, as soon as a girl child clocks three or four years, she is assigned to the kitchen to begin learning the art of cuisine.
In fact, from a traditional and cultural standpoint, during the very first encounter between a woman and the parents of her man, the first thing they want to know is how well she cooks. This is because most African men would boastfully say that no matter how smart, pretty or attractive a woman is, if she lacks the ability to not simply cook, but to cook a hearty meal, then she has a problem.
They are of the conviction that the quality of the food a woman cooks at home, helps to attract her man to her the most. Miatta Fahnbulleh, the renowned Liberian songstress, captured it perfectly in her “Crab” song: “The old people say ‘…[if] you want his heart, his stomach is the way.’ ”
You must therefore be a crafty, multi-faceted and dynamic chef at home to please your man. But (in addition to the bed and other household behavior) you must be able to project, through your domestic capacity, the beauty, charm and modesty of the African woman. And do so very well because there are some men who will be fastidiously selective about what they eat, especially in terms of taste and preparation style and presentation. You therefore have to know your art well to prevent your man from being drawn closer to restaurants---or to ‘another woman’s kitchen.’
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