My Relationship with Food knows no Boundaries!

Most of my childhood memories are filled with me being shooed out of the kitchen as a very young kid to my numerous aunties and my mother finally letting me help with the cooking. I come from a tiny country in West Africa and there is an African proverb that says "it takes a village to raise a child" hence our house was always overflowing with relatives, neighbors and friends of our parents. There always had to be some cooking that needed to be done. Cooking itself was huge part of our life. All the dishes were a process to make, from making the dough and paste that were the bases of most foods to prepping the meat, chicken or any other unlucky animal from scratch to plate, it was just wonderful to watch well except the slaying of the animals, that was my least favorite part, when i was younger i would run away and watch from afar behind something.

One of my favorite food is called "Deggeh" Its a peanut powder based sauce that can be eaten with rice, fried plantains or other African Solids such as "eba" (grounded maize), "fufu" (mashed plantains), "pounded yam" and others. Back home in the 80's and 90's you would have to ground the nuts to make the powder or paste before making the sauce which would have to be done days prior to making the sauce. Thankfully now you can buy Deggeh powder off the shelves of any African grocery store in the US and at home.

Deggeh is so delicious and nutritious!! The creamy peanut taste melts like well peanuts in your mouth but please stay away if you are allergic to peanuts. The contrast of other ingredients added to the peanuts is amazing as you would never think they would all come together to become delicious. Deggeh sauces may include, tomatoes made into a paste, onions, chicken or goat meat, dry fish and many other components. The powder can also be used to bake cakes and thiakry (Senegalese yoghurt)