海角大神

Freetown, Sierra Leone

You might not recognize Sadia Pratt in the early morning. She wears a long house dress and an apron, orange in places where palm oil has soaked in. Her hair is wrapped in a pastel cloth, and her glasses fog up when she stands over the stove just outside her front door. On a Monday morning, she鈥檚 stirring ground nut stew in a dimpled metal pot over the hat. A chicken weaves in and out of her legs as she cooks.

Later in the afternoon, she鈥檒l be prim again, in fresh pressed clothes and small gold earrings. She鈥檒l leave the grueling kitchen heat and preside over her cozy wood-paneled restaurant, laughing as often as she speaks, her round, young face betraying only mirth. Everyone will greet her with what has become, by now, her real name: Mama.

In a city where entrepreneurial spirit is the only abundant resource, Mama鈥檚 restaurant has a small following, and an even smaller menu. Mama runs Kieman鈥檚, a small lunch-and-dinner spot off the beaten track here. In the wood-paneled dining room, before a bar with empty shelves, the stews she serves are more than meals; they鈥檙e a little piece of history in a country whose capital pulses with the energy of recovery.

Mama opened Kieman鈥檚 in 2000, the year Sierra Leone鈥檚 decade-long civil war techically ended, but few knew whether the peace would last. The restaurant is named after her sons 鈥� Aki and Emmanuel 鈥� and in the eight years since it opened, Kieman鈥檚 has become a favorite of the intrepid tourist. You won鈥檛 find it in the growing tourist literature for travelers here, but Mama has a loyal following abroad. Britons, Americans, and Germans who鈥檝e happened upon her Fort Street spot sing its praises on Internet message boards and chat rooms.

鈥淚f you tell her in advance that you鈥檙e coming ... she truly prepares a FEAST for a bargain price,鈥� one Australian tourist wrote. When told about the Australian, Mama said, 鈥淎h, she鈥檚 always sending me people.鈥�

In a post-conflict city full of aid workers and other expats, escaping mediocre 鈥渃ontinental cuisine鈥� and finding gems of local dining can be a challenge. The free advertising means Mama鈥檚 place is one of the few local eateries foreigners know when they hit Freetown, a destination for native dishes like cassava leaf or ground nut stews. They鈥檙e also among Mama鈥檚 favorites. 鈥淚 love tasty foods,鈥� she says. 鈥淐an鈥檛 you see I鈥檓 fat?鈥�

Tasty Sierra Leonean foods give no pause for caloric considerations. The ground nut and cassava leaf stews so common in this part of the world are full of an ingredient that make weight watchers wary: oil. Palm oil is the foundation of many stews here; the oil is tapped in the countryside and brought to town, sold in plastic water bottles, a liter or two at a time. A rich orange in the bottle, the oil turns deep brown when it mixes with cassava leaves, making a stew that looks held together by chocolate syrup. In ground nut stew, a dish colored by the thin purple skins, the oil turns almost pink.

It may be the hints of cinnamon, or a special spice her German friends send 鈥� even Mama doesn鈥檛 know what it is 鈥� but her ground nut stew tastes like more than a thick peanut soup. It鈥檚 her mother鈥檚 recipe, Mama says. 鈥淏ut I improved on it.鈥�

Food here is, of course, about more than improvisation. To explain its diversity, Americans are fond of using the metaphor of the melting pot. In Sierra Leone, where 16 ethnic groups with different languages and traditions share a country the size of South Carolina, the melting pot is literal. In fact, in West Africa, the cassava leaf and other staples cross not just provincial but national boundaries.

鈥淭hese are native foods that were brought here when slaves came through,鈥� says Hindolo Trye, Sierra Leone鈥檚 minister of culture and tourism. 鈥淔reetown was for freed slaves, and when they came here, each one from [a] different place ... they started making what they鈥檝e known before.鈥�

Cassava is a case in point; it is the dietary staple of 250 million Africans. A root with a mild taste, it can be fried like a potato, or ground into a sticky pudding eaten with the fingers, called fufu. The leaves are chopped and turned into a stew.

Food is as much about ritual as it is about history, of course, and in Sierra Leone, cuisine has a place in ceremony. Beans are served at weddings or naming ceremonies, but not on the daily dinner table. Forty days after the death of a loved one, a celebration is held, marked with olele, a bean dish, Mr. Trye says is otherwise hard to find these days.

And then there is the ritual of routine.

鈥淲e have a culture of eating certain foods on certain days. On Saturday, the main diet is fufu,鈥� says Tileima Yilla, principal of the Women鈥檚 Vocational and Training Center in Freetown. Like most food here, fufu is a dish prepared by the matriarch of a home. 鈥淭hose who are single ... they will have to go to a restaurant.鈥�

That gives Mama鈥檚 place an important social role 鈥� and customer base. She prepares two dishes a day, usually stews. Though many Freetownians these days work in offices, they retain a preference for heavy, saucy meals made in the provinces most of them have come from, where men working outdoors needed a hefty meal to get them through the day. On a Monday afternoon a few months ago, the only locals in the restaurant were men. They wish there were more meat in the stew, they say, but otherwise, the day鈥檚 menu tastes pretty much the way food should. 鈥淟ike it used to,鈥� one man says.

It鈥檚 easy to forget, in a place like this, that there were ever good old days. In the brutal, decade-long civil war women were raped, boys kidnapped into rebel groups, who punished resisters by chopping off their arms.

But there was a before, even for Sierra Leone. In the old days, when Mama was a girl, there was electricity and water, two commodities that often disappear even before government rationing shuts them off. There were jobs, and with them, the disposable wealth of a middle class. There were department stores with fashionable clothes, and small drug stores filled with comic books that doubled as spelling primers. 鈥淣ow, if you ask the kids, 鈥楽pell me 鈥榃ow!鈥�, they wouldn鈥檛 know how,鈥� Mama sighs.

And there were toys, not the improvisations that fill poor villages across Africa today 鈥� tiny wooden or wire replicas of bicycles, or the simpler hoop and wheel 鈥� but the toys of a prosperous British colony. Mama鈥檚 brothers had toy cars; she and her sister had dolls 鈥� white dolls. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 like the way they were making the black dolls,鈥� she remembers. 鈥淎lways with the big cheeks, red eyes. Sometimes we are afraid of them. We don鈥檛 look like this.鈥�

There was choice. Mama studied to be a secretary, but the pay was less than she thought she could earn making traditional cuisine. So she saved, gave up her office job, and built a compound on Fort Street, with a restaurant in front and a home in back. In those days, Fort Street was busy, and she had hopes of attracting clients from the nearby Paradise Hotel.

Then the war came and food shortages: Most of the cassava, potatoes, and ground nuts that made up Mama鈥檚 menu were grown in the provinces. When the violence reached the city, Fort Street became a dangerous place. Mama and her family fled, and her little compound was spared from rebel-set blazes by the iron bars and windows.

Peace has brought a flood of international organizations to Freetown, and now secretaries make far more than they imagined they ever could when Mama gave the profession up. But the people they work for don鈥檛 usually dine in restaurants like Mama鈥檚. Mostly, her clientele is a loyal, but small, group of locals who love her food.

She gives little thought either to what might have been, if she鈥檇 kept her office job, or to what might still be, if she鈥檚 able to retire. The past and the future are full of different difficulties, she says, and 鈥渓ife must go on. Who will give you what you need?鈥� She sighs. 鈥淪o you have to do something.鈥�