Liberian Cookhouse Cooking by RPCV Joan Keenan
Liberian Cookhouse Cooking by RPCV Joan Keenan
When the people of Liberia, West Africa, get together, a major part of any occasion, no matter how important or insignificant, is the food. Hot, spicy, ricey, and highly practical, the dishes of that country can now be tried by cooks around the world with Liberian Cookhouse Cooking.
Its editor, Charles H. Emanuel Elementary teacher Joan Keenan, was a Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Liberia before she came to teach on St. Croix in the late 1960s. One of the strongest memories she carried away with her was of a lively tradition of story-telling around great food. The editor has brought the two together in her 192-page collection of recipes, proverbs, stories, photos and facts from Africa’s oldest republic.
When that country was devastated by a civil war in 1990, Ms. Keenan joined several hundred other former Liberia Peace Corps volunteers in a group called Friends of Liberia. They have pooled their resources to send medical assistance, educational supplies, support for orphanages, and even teams of mediators and election monitors to guide the peace process that lead up to successful elections in July.
The proceeds from Liberian Cookhouse Cooking will go to the Friends’ program called Communities Nurturing Children, a village-based effort to reconstruct the institutions that improve quality of life for children. The towns of Owensgrove and Johnsonville are completing the renovation of elementary schools and clinics this month. In the year ahead, the group hopes to start an educational exchange program with those and other Liberian schools to improve the quality of learning.
The cookbook not only introduces readers to a new culinary experience, but also provides them and opportunity to savor a centuries old African culture. In addition they will have helped a nation of war-weary children get back to the business of growing up.
