Salla VartiainenOff-season approaching in the Gambia
The off-season is really starting here now. Not many tourists around and many restaurants and shops have limited their opening-hours. The white people you see are so called ”Gambian toubabs” aka people who either live here permanently or have been travelling back and forth between their original country and the Gambia for many many years. Many of the people working in the tourist-area have also gone home to their villages to visit family or maybe to help on family farms where the crops will grow during raining season.
The traffic is also less busy and the beaches lacks the usual amounts of juice sellers and fruit-ladies, although some hard-working persons still do their best to earn a living in spite of the tourist-season being over.
Empty juice shacks on Kololi beach
We´ve cooked a premiere omelette on the electric cooker we bought and I was pleasently surprised by how good the cooker was. Otherwise we´ve been eating out, in both tourist-restaurants (3 times more expensive) and local ones.
The premiere omelette
Gambian food
My favorite Gambian food is Njebbeh which is beans in a bread with onion, vegetables and hot sauce! It is only available at breakfast time and can be found in many places. You can choose if you want it in senfur or tapalapa. Senfur is a senegalesian bread which is like a normal baguette. Tapalapa is a more steady, Gambian, bread, which maybe is more like a rustic baguette. Both can be found fresh in any corner shop early in the mornings.
Njebbeh served in a swedish newspaper
The only local food I´ve been eating besides njebbeh was when we were visiting the family. Other than that we´ve been eating shawarmas and spaghettis and chicken with chips and the normal stuff. Mango season is also upon us so there are mango-sellers in every junction.
Uncle in my favourite restaurant not far from the Senegambia strip
I havn´t really done a culinary-Gambia trip yet, mostly because my stomach is very sensitive but if I would rate my favorite Gambian foods so far I would say:
1. Njebbeh
2. Benechin
3. Chicken Yassa
Lets see if that changes during my time here.
xoxo/ Salla V