How to Eat Every Part of a Ram

One of my favorite things about travelling is the opportunity to try new foods. Frankly, the diet of The Gambia has not been something I've especially loved. It’s a lot of rice, three-meals-a-day-kind of a lot of rice. The rice is served with some sort of sauce. The ingredients for these sauces are usually onions, oil, okra, pepper, bitter tomatoes, fish, and/or local peanut butter. There are 3 major types: benechin described in another blog post here, and then domada and chu, described below. Many Wolof families, mine included, also eat cheree, or pounded millet. When first acquainted, many people think they are eating sand. I admit that it does look like wet sand, but prepared correctly, it is actually quite nice. I prefer it to rice which is lucky for me, because we eat this cheree almost every day for dinner.

But for one week in October, my palate got to taste something that wasn't the same-old fish bones and onion sauce. During the Muslim feast of Eid-ai-adha, or Tobaski, we slaughtered a ram and proceeded to eat almost every part of it over the next 3-7 days. Here’s the menu for this year’s 3-day feast.

Day 1:
Lunch

        ·         Appetizer: Grilled Ram testicles and ribs
        ·         Meat sauce and bread-Mutton, bones, onions, peppers, mustard powder, oil

Dinner

        ·         Appetizer: cooked my own meat marinated in Tony’s Creole seasoning*
        ·         Cherre (see above description) with organ and intestine sauce

Day 2:
Breakfast

        ·         Cherre with organ and intestine sauce again

Lunch

       ·         Meat Domada on rice-Domada is a sauce with local peanut butter as its base

Dinner

       ·         Appetizer-Ram head-Exactly what it sounds like. It was, I think, boiled and still whole. We ate the cheeks, tongue, and cartilage, and then broke open the skull to eat the brain.

       ·         Cherre with organ and intestine sauce again, again

Day 3:

Breakfast

        ·         Cherre with organ and intestine sauce one more time

Lunch
        ·         Rice with meat chu- the sauce is cooked like an onion stew and poured on rice

Dinner

        ·         Leftover Rice and Chu

*In the morning while cooking, my host mother handed me a chunk of raw meat the size of my head and said my host father wanted me to have it. I told her she could keep it and that we’d all eat it, but she insisted. Culturally, when you slaughter something, you should give a share of the meat to respectable people in the village, members of your extended family, and to needy families. My host father wanted to show me honor and respect so I accepted the meat.

After the third day of celebrations, the meat continued to appear in our sauces for another week. My family salted the meat heavily and dried it in the sun to keep it from going rancid in the land of no electricity, however, by the sixth day it was starting to taste funky. I am happy to report that my health was not seriously affected, and I enjoyed my Tobaski menu. Believe it or not, the cheree with organ and intestine sauce is incredible! Easily one of my favorite things I’ve eaten in The Gambia. Likewise, the ram testicles and brain were great. The testicles, grilled over charcoal, tasted like chislic. I’m not sure how to describe the brain beyond mushy, yet tasty. Cheek, tongue, and cartilage, not my forte, but I’m happy for a new experience.

Nuleen, nu leeka! (Come, let’s eat!)