Danish Delicacies

Just got back from a wonderful weekend with the gals, visiting a friend who lives in Copenhagen.

We managed to pack quite an impressive number of local delicacies into our two days, including numerous tasters at a food market. We bought an amazing pesto gouda and an extremely strong, soft, nutty artisan gouda, tasted licorice and chili salami (surprisingly and stunningly good), and we cooked ourselves traditional meatballs. I love the Scandinavian breakfasts of slivers of cheese on bread or rye bread.

I was in my element when we sat outside a restaurant by the quay and shared platters of mixed seafood specialities, including smoked salmon, rollmops and other cured fish, all washed down with akvavit. We chose one akvavit that had been matured in barrels while being sailed to the equator and back, which was mellow and caramelly, whilst still very clean-tasting. The other one we sampled was flavoured with dill. It was exceptionally good, went beautifully with the food, of course, and sipping it made transported me to wooden cabins in forests and on heathery heaths.

Elderberry Wine and Friends, South-West France

Not really cuisine from the far corners of the planet, but definitely a gastronomic triumph, and some might find it adventurous...

My best mate Perry's been cosying up for autumn and having some culinary adventures in his own kitchen in France, with the help of wood-burners (yes, plural) and Unglum the cat (whose fave food is tomatoes, by the way). Italian heart stew, pizza dough flatbreads puffed up over a barbecue for kebabs, Moroccan meatball and egg stew, blood sausage omelet and freshly-collected oysters have been some of the mouth-watering delights on the menu over the last couple of weeks.

This is the elderberry wine the dude's been working on for two months, after collecting the berries in his garden. Perry carefully completed each stage exactly by the book, to avoid the risk of his precious potion turning to vinegar instead of alcohol. Success! It was all worth it. Now he has litres and litres of potent, fruity wine to get through. Lucky he's got good friends to help him out! See tasting notes below.

The beautiful results of weeks of careful work.


"It tastes really fruity, but not in a dodgy way, a bit like really weak ribena, but it smells wonderful. I think it should become amazing, because everything I've read says it should be undrinkable before Christmas at the earliest - maybe it's just my vin de table standards! It is certainly pretty strong even at this early stage - all I had was the glass in the picture and I really felt the effect strongly as you can probably tell from my email." - Perry Lancaster

Cassava Leaves & Mud Cakes - 22nd August 2007

Went to the coolest place for lunch; D’s Bazaar, in Freetown. The kitchen is basically a landing on the stairs, with a couple of gas rings, and pots everywhere. It is expertly managed by two cheerful cooks. The first-floor café was bright and clean, with colourful tablecloths and plastic flowers. We got a table by the balcony, and ate spicy cassava leaf stew (which had ‘cow meat’ in it), with rice, and a delicious dish of ‘special rice’, which consisted of spicy, tasty rice served with fried chicken and fish. We drank Star beer.



In the afternoon, I went to the Freetown post office - the only place you can buy postcards - and walked around the centre of the capital, where, being white and female, lots of people shouted to try to get my attention, to buy their wares or just to say hello. There wasn’t any difficult or uncomfortable hassle, except that I wanted to buy some chillies in exchange for taking a picture of a fantastically colourful market stall, but the women running it wanted to charge me a fortune for the privilege. I didn’t have that kind of cash, and didn’t want to feel ripped-off, so I contented myself with buying what looked like flour-covered pastries, possibly similar to baklava. They felt curiously heavy and solid, but the girl who sold them to me didn’t speak enough English to tell me what they were, other than that they were “rich”.

I took my treasures, which smelled spicy and sweet, to the office where my father was working. I asked his colleagues what I had bought. They said they were hand-rolled, dried sea mud, which was full of minerals and meant for pregnant women to eat. They're called 'wojo', meaning clay in Creo. Not to be discouraged, I gave one a go – after all, they were so fragrant! But, unsurprisingly for dried mud, my mouth was filled with an almost tasteless, ashy, dry, powdery substance and grit. I’m sure they’re very nutritious…

Lebanese Mezze

Supper was fantastic Lebanese mezze served in the Lighthouse Restaurant - another comparatively pricey seafront eaterie. I didn’t enjoy the atmosphere here as much as in other places, but that may have been because there were less people around (it was raining and there was one of the metropolis-wide power cuts). But the surroundings were beautiful, and we thoroughly enjoyed the food! Our selection included fattoush, tabbouleh, mutabel, little spicy sausages and meatballs encased in rice and fried. Oh yeah, and we drank Star beer. Then finished off with rum.

There is a strong Lebanese presence in Sierra Leone, with loads of second and third generation Lebanese running thriving businesses, and Sierra Leoneans feeling “like bothers” towards their Lebanese friends.

Countryside & Roadside Snacks - 27th August 2007

Monday morning, and we were off to the hydroelectric dam project that my father is working on, in Bumbuna. First we had to get through Freetown’s traffic mayhem, which meant sitting in stationary traffic for quite a long time, watching people selling, delivering, shouting, greeting, carrying and hanging out. Then there was a terrific downpour, and umbrellas of all colours burst into flower, whilst stalls were quickly covered in plastic.

Eventually, we left Freetown behind, and I spent the four hour drive upcountry enjoying the sights of palm plantations and my first African thatched houses, as well as returning the many greetings from villagers and fellow road-users (on foot, in cars, in buses, on motorbikes and in lethal-looking lorries). I was taking in scenes so typically African that I felt like I was in a fibre-glass-based safari park.



Lunch on the road was sweet green bananas, and char-grilled corn on the cob (tasty but could have done with some salt and butter), bought from street sellers. We also purchased some strange fruit that we were told were plums, but looked nothing like them and were inedible raw.

As we got further into the countryside, children outside mud and straw houses would go berserk waving, laughing and screaming “O Poto, O Poto, O Poto!” (Meaning ‘European’/ ‘white man’) at us as we went past. We’d get to what looked like major places on the map, but the settlements themselves were no bigger than a small village. The mud, thatch and tin cottages and huts, with chickens and goats milling about them, looked restful and solid after the slums of Freetown.



The Range Rover climbed up ochre dirt tracks, further into the jungle. We eventually arrived at the dam project worker’s camp by early evening, just in time for some pre-dinner drinks with freshly roasted peanuts - which tasted exactly like peanut butter. Without a doubt the nicest peanuts I’ve tasted, I vowed to try and find raw peanuts in Europe when I got back, so I could re-create the home-roasted flavour.

I asked the barman for the best places to drink in Bumbuna village, and he told us about Mabinti Johnny’s bar, where you can also get good food. We’d have to search it out the next day…



Being an Italian-run project, the camp’s cafeteria serves Italian-style food. ‘Camp’ makes it all sound very basic, but actually it’s a collection of bungalows and communal buildings. It was a nice change to have red wine and a meal of meatballs, potato, cheeses, charcuterie, and salads. ‘Specially the wine. ☺