Gherkins & Tomatoes

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life

Main menu

Skip to content
  • 365 Days – Photo-a-Day Gallery
  • About Gherkins & Tomatoes
  • Culinary History Resources
  • RECIPE INDEX

Archives

Show Grid Show List

Post navigation

Photo credit: Kumar McMillan

Tasting France in Senegal

March 9, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

The ocean there, it’s infinite, a place where horizon and water meet like a seam in a dress, a little bump and then smoothness again. Sunlight pierces the dawn’s fading blackness and, overhead, the parasitic gulls swirl, their curved yellow beaks moving incessantly, filling the air with their own peculiar songs. And then human voices join in, throbbing, shutting out the pounding noise of the waves. Senegalese fishermen singing Men, women, and children rush to the boats, thrusting their hands […]

Categories: African Cooking, France, French Cooking, Senegal • Tags: African Cooking, Fish, France, French Cooking, Mullet, Senegal, West Africa

3
Photo credit: Cecily Upton

Belleville, Paris, France: I

September 19, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Belleville, the site of my upcoming study in France, filled with other worlds and other tongues, other ways and other dreams, but all French, just the same.

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Agriculture, France, French Cooking, Local foods, Photography • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, Belleville, France, French Cooking, Open-Air Markets, Paris

Cabbage black-eyed peas

Cabbage and Black-Eyed Peas, Oh My! An Easy New Year’s Dish with a Long History

December 22, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Yes, I know, you’re overwhelmed with preparations for Christmas. If you’re like me, you’re still trying to come up with THE menu that will knock Uncle Scrooge out of his foul grinchy mood. So how come I’m looking at New Year’s foods already? There’s a good reason — there’s only one thing to eat that day. Black-eyed peas, a gift from a part of Africa ruled by the French for a long time. [They were there as early as 1659 at […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Cooking, France, New Year's Day, Southern Food • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, Black-Eyed Peas, Cabbage, Chou, Dawadawa, New Year's Day, Niebe, Pois yeux noirs, Science Magazine, Senegal, Southern cooking, Striga, Virginia, Witchweed

7
Children cooking 1

Idylls of Cuisine, #59

April 18, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Cooking, Photography • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, Children, Cooking, Food Photography, Refugees

Photo credit: Nate Marsh

A Cook’s Finger, or, A Pearl Beyond Price, Part 2

January 8, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Continued from January 7, 2010: In the beginning, dealing with Michel’s injured finger didn’t bring out the best in me. Truthfully, I longed to wash my hands of my cook’s ineptness. I did not want to take the time to deal with any of it. And yet, seeing Michel disintegrating in pain, well, I knew that I had no choice. Like it or not, I was involved. With a Burkinabe friend’s help, I found a local doctor willing to look […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking, Burkina Faso, Cooking • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, Burkina Faso, Cooks

4
Africa women market

Flavor Principles Out of Africa: West Africa

June 9, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Cooking in Africa follows certain patterns: Universals – Onions, tomatoes, peppers Starches – Cassava, cocoyams, sweet potatoes, cornmeal (mealie meal and samp or dried corn kernels, etc.), bananas, plantains, yams, rice, millet, sorghum, fonio, couscous Thickeners – Okra, melon and squash seeds (egusi), peanuts Vegetables – Pumpkin and other squashes, green leaves, okra, eggplant, black-eyed peas West Africa is no exception to this culinary pattern. This part of Africa includes Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, […]

Categories: Africa, African Cooking • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, Flavor Principles, Fufu, West Africa

1

Chicken Curry, From Réunion (the Country)

May 11, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Réunion is a country. About 800 kms. east of Madagascar. Off the coast of Africa. A former fueling/supply station for ships on their way to Asia for spices. A bit “out there,” yes. But the food there … tastes and flavors marry each in ways only possible when people from different cultures meet each other and, well, you know. Beginning officially in 1649, France wielded power, political and culinary, over this small way-station (then called “Bourbon”) in the Indian Ocean. […]

Categories: African Cooking, Réunion • Tags: African Cooking, Chicken, Chicken Curry, Curry, Réunion

4
Chicken in Red Palm Oil (Photo credit: John Tolva)

Palm Oil, Chicken In

May 9, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe once wrote that proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. A recipe for chicken in red palm oil: CHICKEN IN RED PALM OIL Serves 4-6 ¼ c. red palm oil 1 chicken, cut up for frying ½ t. ground coriander 1 t. sea salt 1 t. dried orange peel 1 t. dried minced garlic 1/4 t. ground hot red pepper (cayenne) Melt the red palm oil in a large cast-iron skillet. Mix the […]

Categories: Africa, Chicken, Oil Palm, Recipes • Tags: African Cooking, Chicken, Chinua Achebe, Palm Oil

3
African Oil Palm (Photo credit: Geoff Leeming)

Palm Oil, A Mixed Blessing

May 7, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

African palm oil — from Elaeis guineensis and used in traditional African cooking — adds a rich red color and  unctuous mouthfeel to many stews and sauces. Rich in beta-carotenes, palm oil contains no trans fats since it is not hydrogenated. Unfortunately, palm oil also packs a huge wallop to the environment because of demand for palm-oil-based biofuels and cosmetics. In other words, large multinational corporations found out about this traditional food. Now rainforests face degradation in increasing numbers, as […]

Categories: Africa, Oil Palm • Tags: African Cooking, African Oil Palm, Biofuels, Dende Oil, One Villiage Initiative, Palm Oil, Richard Francis Burton, The Lake Regions of Central Africa

8

West African Origins of Southern Cooking

March 28, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Nearly all writers on Southern food agree that African slaves influenced the evolution of Southern food. Here’s a video of Burkina Faso, where I lived for two years, and a lunch served in a village.

Categories: Africa, Southern Food, Video • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, Cooking, Culinary History, Food, Southern cooking, West Africa

Photo credit: Erwin Bolwidt

A Pantry in Africa

February 19, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Maze-like unpaved streets and red-mud brick buildings lend the aura of a rural village to the West African metropolis. Women garb themselves in vibrant and symbolic yellow and red and blue and green batik-cloth robes. Smoke and pollution from thousands of charcoal cooking fires and thousands of overloaded and under-maintained mopeds daily saturate the scorching 96º F air. Lined on either side with towering modern street lamps, each topped with a foul-smelling vulture waiting for something to die, a lone […]

Categories: Africa, Beef, Burkina Faso, Greens, Recipes, Tomatoes • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, Burkina Faso, Cooking, Cooks, Food, Pantries, Peanut Sauce, Recipes, West Africa

millet-beer

A Village in Africa

February 17, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

It didn’t take long for the red dust to coat the white Nissan Patrol 4WD like the sugar crust on a crème brulée. Thick. Crunchy. Slightly gritty. “Look like we here,” Moussa, our Muslim driver, said, his Moré accent glossing the familiar English words. The Land Rover turned off the long straight highway at Koudougou. Two weeks after arriving in-country, not yet used to 120 degree F heat pulsating like an overheated car’s exhaust pipe, we’re deep in the bush, […]

Categories: Africa, Beef, Burkina Faso, Recipes • Tags: Africa, African Cooking, African Dancing, Burkina Faso, Cooking, Cooks, Food, Wollof Rice

1

Post navigation

Food forms the very essence of life, from the fruit fly to the elephant, with humans in between. So much of what we do revolves around cooking, eating, and the finding of food. Here you'll discover stories, meditations, and photographs celebrating the places that we call home. And, of course, the food that garnishes it all.

My book, due out September 15, 2013

Looking for Something? SEARCH

What’s Cookin’ Here

  • A Bare Table is Like an Artist’s Canvas
  • “Stew’s so comforting on a rainy day.” *
  • Singkong, Manioc, Mandioca, Mandió, Tapioca, Yuca: Singing the Praises of Manihot esculenta (Cassava)
  • The Promise of Apple Blossoms

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 406 other followers

On the home page, click on the pictures to go to the posts. Or click the little boxes in the upper right-hand corner to display posts and first paragraphs.

What We’re Talkin’ About Here

Africa All Souls' Day American Cooking Art Barack Obama Bibliographies Book Reviews Bread Christmas Cookbooks Cooking Cooks Cuisine Francaise Culinary History Day of the Dead Eggs England English Cooking Fish Food Food History Food Photography France French Cooking French cuisine Gardens Haiti Halloween Herbs India Italian Cooking Italy Julia Child M. F. K. Fisher Monasteries Monks Morocco Mushrooms Paris Photography Provence Recipes Southern cooking Virginia White House

Who’s visiting?

Beautiful Blogger Award

Reader Appreciation Award

Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Customized Gridspace by Graph Paper Press.
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 406 other followers

Powered by WordPress.com