Liberian Diet

The copious use of pepper in the Liberian diet has historical and bacteriological significance, not only to the Liberian people, but to the rest of the world. Prior to the invention of artificial refrigeration, Europeans paid a fortune to get cyanne pepper. The reason for the high demand for pepper was because one of the ways Europeans and Africans preserved perishable food, such as fish and meat, was by massively seasoning it with pepper. This did not only help to preserve the food by killing existing bacteria and viruses in the food, but it prevented further contamination, over a reasonable period of time. The intensity in the usage of pepper by people in countries like Liberia, was obviously attributable to the hot and humid climate, where intensity in the use of pepper increase the probablity that the food would last longer.

Proir to the discovery of the cause and treatment of this dreaded disease in the late nineteenth century, Pepper was used to treat malaria..

Other Liberian staple foods are dumboy and fufu, which are prepared from cassava. Since most people who will be reading this web page know how to prepare rice, explaination of its preparation is not warranted. Let us therefore turn our discussion to dumboy and fufu. I assume that some of the readers do not know cassava. Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary defines cassava as, "any of several plants of the (genus manihot) of the splurge family grown in the tropics for their fleshy edible rootstocks which yield a nutritious starch..." I must add that the species grown in Liberia is probably the best in the world. It is very tasty and fluffy, and doesn't break up easily when it is boiled. It is even used to manufacture starch.

Let us first discuss the preparation of dumboy. Dumboy is nothing more than fresh cassava, which is first cooked and then beaten in a mortar, until it is thick and tenacious. Once it is well beaten, the dumboy is removed and placed in a bow, and a little water is poured around it, to keep it from hardening. A soup is then prepared, usually peanut soup with okra on the side, to go with the dumboy. Now dumboy is not made to be chewed upon. The proper way to consume it, is to swallow it once it gets in the mouth. Consequently, once the soup is ready, the water is removed from the dumboy, and the soup is added. For the inexperience consumer, dumboy has to be cut in little pieces, so that it can be swallowed without effort. Remember okra is usually added, to make the consumption easier. Dumboy was introduced to the Liberian community the Bassa-Liberias.

The preparation of fufu is more complicated and time consuming than dumboy. The cassava is first granulated and allowed to ferment for a few days. Then, all solid materials from the starch are filtered and discarded. Only the starchy water is used. The starchy water is boiled and simultaneously stirred, until it becomes tenacious. Lot of attention is required when it is being boiled. As the mass thickens, it is gradually stirred, to keep it from sticking to the pot. When it is ready, it is eaten with soup. Remember again, that fufu is not made to be chewed upon, it is made to be swallowed.

Now we come to the king of the Liberian diet--rice. There are two types of rice that are eaten in Liberia: home grown, and the imported rice ( which is called "Pusava" by the Liberian people). Liberians have gotten use to eating foreign rice over the years for one reason--it is free of rocks and foreign substances. Some of the home grown rice has the reputation of being contaminated with rocks. The contamination usually occurs during the drying of the rice on mats in the interior. As far back as 1843, an African-American emigrant complained about rocks in the locally produced rice, when he said: "Here I can't get anything but a few cassadas or a little palm-oil and rice, and the rice full of rocks, at that." This negative reputation has turned Liberians against locally produced rice over the years, despite the fact that the homegrown rice is naturally grown, brown, very nutritious, and has been substantially improved over the years.

There are many types of greens and vegetables that are eaten with rice in Liberia; they include: potato greens, cassava leaves, palava sauce, palm butter, and many others. Potato greens comes from the greens of potato, and taste just like spinach. You can cook it just like spinach; however, in Liberia, potato greens is usually fried with onions, peppers, beef or chicken. After it is fried, water is added to it and boiled until it is done. In the United States, potatoe greens is usually thrown away or used as cattle feed. What a waste!

Cassava leaf comes from the leaves of cassava, which was discussed earlier. The leaves are washed and beaten in a mortar with pepper and unions. Then, it is boiled with beef or chicken until it is well done. Just before all of the water dries in the pot, palm oil is added to it, and it is allowed to simmer. It is then eaten with rice.

Palm butter comes from palm nuts. The palm nuts are first boiled, then crushed until the fibers are removed from the nuts. Then, hot water is poured on the crushed nuts and fibers, so that the sauce and the oil can be removed. After the fiber is filtered from the oil and the sauce, the sauce is poured in a pot, and beef or chicken, including onions, pepper, salt, are added to the pot, and allowed to cook until it is done.

In the indigenous society, the fibers are kept to light firewood for cooking, and the nuts are stored so that palm kernel oil can be manufactured from them.

Almost all the foods discussed can be purchased in African, Korean, and West Indian stores, in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Before I end this discussion, it is important to note the problems that past Liberian Governments have had, in attemptimg to convert from subsistence to commercial farming, as a means of making Liberia self-sufficient in the production of rice---Liberia's staple food-and other produce. President William R. Tolbert, who made a concerted effort to achieve this goal, via a self-sufficienty program coupled with a government participation in produce marketing (through the Liberia Produce Marketing Program-LPMC) was overthrown and executed in a military coup on April 12, 1980, as a consequence of political forces which eminated from the increase in the price of rice. The breakdown in law and order that followed led to a bloody civil war (1990-1996) which claimed over ten percent of the population.

When President Tolbert was elevated to the presidency in 1971, Liberia was importing 119,357 pounds of rice per year; when he was overthrown in 1980, Liberia's rice imports rose to 190,692 pounds per year, an increase of 60 percent over a decade. One of the factors that contributed to this substantial increase in the demand for rice was a 26 percent increase in Liberia's population during the period under review, coupled with Liberian's insatiable appetite for imported rice, called "Pusava"

There are other factors that continue to retard Liberia's attempt to convert from subsistence farming to commercial farming; they include: climate, soil, topography, adaption to agricultural technology, access to markets, credit unavailability, an inadquate delivery system, and the "fiefdomization" of the agricultural process by the politicians and those in power. This political interference has resulted in the fragmentation and the redundancy of the whole process.