Gabonese🇬🇦 Cuisine// 1

Eating in Africa is often a convivial moment. Sharing that part of life with family or close friends is very important. Mbolo🙏! Dear Readers, in this post I just wanted to share a little bit more of my culture and tradition. This is my first post where I will share with you food and dishes from my country. This is for those who are curious to discover something different. In my last book "Destination Libreville" I have a chapter where I talk about Gabonese🇬🇦 Cuisine a little bit. I say a little bit because there is a variety of dishes from my country. I could not have them all in my book. It takes time! This is here in my blog, Gabonese Cuisine part 1 and there will be other parts because there is a lot to share. This is culture! From cassava leaves cooked in a certain way to some appetizers of fried plantains etc. The list is long. I love this rich culture! So when you come to visit Gabon, we usually make you discover our dishes. We make everything from scratch.It means that we take so much time cooking. So, it is always nice to at least taste all the dishes on the table when one invites you in his or her home to eat. We have a list of accompaniements: Plantains, cassava, rice, maize, taro, sweet potato, yam... You name it.. We cook them in different ways. We have some similarities in the way they are cooked in West Africa as well. But some other things are really different.

My book tries to give an idea of some of the dishes that you will see in an invitation at home. There are also some special dishes for traditional wedding that have meaning and those cooked for women who gave birth only. You have those for ceremonies of rejoicing. But, all in all we usually present make them in ways that you can have a variety of choices. I talk about it in a chapter of my last book "Destination Libreville"

When you live abroad it is kind of different a little bit because you don't have everything local. So you try to adapt and still try to make it good and tasty! Let's jump right into it! These are some of the dishes that I made recently and as I said I did my best to adapt and to make it look like it is supposed to be. I cooked them in different days of the week. It takes time but it worth the work! 😄😆 I usually try to dress the table good so this time I put some blue placemats from Burkina Faso 🇧🇫 a country of West Africa that I ❤️ love.

Dish one: Fish 🐟 Broth. This is something that is very common for people who live on the coast. It is so good! Usually we add African eggplants, okra' sorrel and 🍤🦐shrimps too

Dish 2: Smoked Wild Boar cooked in Odika Ok! what is Odika? It is a special something that we add to cook with. It gives a special taste and it is very much eaten in Gabon. It gives that brown chocolate color of the food. Odika is made of nuts of a local fruit of my country.

This is Odika (also called N'dor) I got it straight from my country. Freshly made. It is usually made by mothers.

Dish 3 : Fish cooked in oven.

Dish 4: We call it le Paté Royal. A tradition dish made of African cucumber seeds. It is very much cooked in 🇬🇦 Gabon. It is usually cooked with delicacy and time. Not everyone should cook it according to my tradition. Only women with pure heartwere cooking this dish. Also, women who were on cycle could not cook it during the time. If your heart was not good, that dish could not cook well and people when they open it , would see how not good it is. Ok! This is from tradition. The process takes a lot of patience and time. It is cooked when the family of the bride welcomes the groom's family. So, yes it has to be good! It is also cooked when there are important ceremonies and also when you welcome a special guest.

The process takes time and patience

And these are some of the accompaniements

But, you can see the Gabonese cucumber grounded seeds below.

Now I hope you discovered something tonight and Bon Appétit! Abora 🙏 Dear Readers. Thank you 😊 🙏 for reading!