![]() The sautéed cheese becomes hardened, almost like haloumi, and is added near the end. Ingredients are boiled separately and added to a large pot of pungent reddish-orange palm oil. The okra draws from the bowl like melted cheese from a hot New York pizza, holding bits of delicious crab, fish, cow skin, shrimp, and fried cheese." -Jody Ray "To eat the stew, we’d take a bit of fufu between the fingers and scoop the ingredients of the stew with it. ![]() Augustine doled out the chores: I gutted mackerel and sliced okra, Ben sautéed cheese and sliced cow skin, Augustine ground up shrimp and chilies into a fine paste with a stone. ![]() ![]() We made everything right in Augustine’s front yard, with various ingredients boiling over three small fires we built. The gumbo that we are accustomed to in Louisiana is an amalgamation of these West African ingredients, joined with a French roux and flavored by Native American sassafras and other spices.Ĭow skin being boiled for inclusion in West African okra stew. They seem strange to westerners because they have been lost, phased out with French and Native American influence. But these are all the things that make this dish particularly West African. Western purveyors and enthusiasts of Louisiana gumbo might raise their eyebrows at ingredients like curded cheese, cow skin, and the hefty surplus of okra. Note: Sometimes African eggplant is added, but we did not purchase any this time. By the end of our shopping spree, we squeezed into a taxi back to Augustine’s home a few miles away with the following ingredients, enough to make a stew to feed approximately six to eight people:Ĭurded, large chunks of cheese (approximately 10) Jean-Paul helped us negotiate (an expected back-and-forth in West Africa) as we drew ire and laughter from locals who slapped their knees at the sight of two white men in traditional West African dress. Augustine whipped out a sheet of paper, her grocery list.Ī variety of chilies on display at Dantokpa Market in Benin.Īnd so, we made our way through this bustling vegetable section, gathering all the things on Augustine’s list. We made it to the food and vegetable area. On the other side, hundreds of goats bleated and stomped the ground, raising clouds of dust amidst the clamoring of shoppers deciding between livestock or butchered meat.Īs we ventured deeper into the market, things became quieter. On one end, stacks of textiles, plastic buckets, tools, and toys created a seemingly endless backdrop against which sellers shouted and negotiated with buyers. We made our way through corridors and crevices of this vibrant and noisy marketplace. As instructed, we donned our West African slacks and shirts and set out for the market. The next morning Ben and I woke up with a slight hangover from a dinner of Beninese rum and imported Pringles, eager to make our way through Dantokpa Market with Jean-Paul and his mother, Augustine. Photographer Ben Dome (front), guide Jean-Paul Houndagnon (middle), and writer Jody Ray (back) walking through Dantokpa Market in Benin wearing traditional West African garments. It’s one thing to simply know the ingredients for the dish it’s an entire honor to purchase them alongside locals, and then to observe how they are meant to be prepared and cooked, inside their home. We asked if we could meet them in the morning. My colleague Ben Dome, a UK-based photographer, and I were instantly intrigued. She could easily show you where to go! She could probably even make some for you.” “Where can I find the ingredients for gumbo stew?” I had asked him. "As a native of Louisiana, I came here scouting the ingredients for okra stew, the West African dish that historically lent itself to the beloved gumbo of my home state." -Jody Ray I was told to begin my journey to Dantokpa in the early morning, at the advice of a local friend and tour guide named Jean-Paul Houndagnon, a Beninese citizen who helped me find backroad cafés and Vodou markets in neighboring Togo. A traditional West African okra stew requires two to three pounds of okra, a vegetable used in Louisiana gumbos as well, that was originally brought to North America by enslaved Africans.
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