How to Make West African Okra Stew
Searching for the origins of Louisiana gumbo in Benin
I’m pleased to report that Western-style supermarkets remain a rare enough phenomenon in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city. While I was there, I did eventually find one—all boxed away from the public with security guards at the entrance. This is where I got my quick fixes of frozen pizza, Pringles, Coca-Cola products—things shipped in from other countries at a premium.
For everything else, though, I ventured to the sprawling chaos of Dantokpa Market, the largest open-air market in West Africa.
As a native of Louisiana, I came here scouting the ingredients for okra stew, the West African dish that historically lent itself to the beloved gumbo of my home state.
I was told to begin my journey to Dantokpa in the early morning, at the advice of a local friend and tour guide named Jean-Paul Houndagnon, a Beninese citizen who helped me find backroad cafés and Vodou markets in neighboring Togo.
"As a native of Louisiana, I came here scouting the ingredients for okra stew, the West African dish that historically lent itself to the beloved gumbo of my home state." —Jody Ray
“Where can I find the ingredients for gumbo stew?” I had asked him.
“Oh, that’s easy,” he answered. “My mother makes it all the time. She could easily show you where to go! She could probably even make some for you.”
My colleague Ben Dome, a UK-based photographer, and I were instantly intrigued. We asked if we could meet them in the morning. It’s one thing to simply know the ingredients for the dish; it’s an entire honor to purchase them alongside locals, and then to observe how they are meant to be prepared and cooked, inside their home.
“This would be a great time to wear your West African clothes,” Jean-Paul said, alluding to the traditional garments he’d helped Ben and I find and tailor a few days prior in Togo. While there are different names for this style of men’s clothing, it essentially consists of a loose tunic shirt with matching pants. Styles vary slightly, but the designs of the shirt and pants almost always match. Sorting through literally thousands of options in a fabric shop can take hours, and locals specifically look for designs that represent their mood, personality, and taste.
“Really?” I asked, cautious from American conditioning of avoiding cultural insensitivity or appropriation. “Should we really do that?”
“Absolutely,” Jean-Paul said. “Everyone’s going to love it!”
The next morning Ben and I woke up with a slight hangover from a dinner of Beninese rum and imported Pringles, eager to make our way through Dantokpa Market with Jean-Paul and his mother, Augustine. As instructed, we donned our West African slacks and shirts and set out for the market.
We made our way through corridors and crevices of this vibrant and noisy marketplace. On one end, stacks of textiles, plastic buckets, tools, and toys created a seemingly endless backdrop against which sellers shouted and negotiated with buyers. On the other side, hundreds of goats bleated and stomped the ground, raising clouds of dust amidst the clamoring of shoppers deciding between livestock or butchered meat.
As we ventured deeper into the market, things became quieter. We made it to the food and vegetable area. Augustine whipped out a sheet of paper, her grocery list.
“This is everything we need,” she said. “Fish, shrimp, crab, salt, oil, and of course, gombo!” she said, referring to the large bag of okra we would need to create the stew. This humble vegetable has a storied past, traveling with enslaved West Africans—in their pockets and in their hair—to port cities in South America, the Caribbean, and the Port of New Orleans. After several generations, the vegetable would undergo significant evolutionary modification, and eventually become a key ingredient of Louisiana’s gumbo—whose name is believed to originate from this West African ingredient.
And so, we made our way through this bustling vegetable section, gathering all the things on Augustine’s list. Jean-Paul helped us negotiate (an expected back-and-forth in West Africa) as we drew ire and laughter from locals who slapped their knees at the sight of two white men in traditional West African dress. By the end of our shopping spree, we squeezed into a taxi back to Augustine’s home a few miles away with the following ingredients, enough to make a stew to feed approximately six to eight people:
Whole African mackerel fish (5-10)
Small live crabs (10-15)
Salted fish (approximately 5)
Dried shrimp (8-10 ounces)
Curded, large chunks of cheese (approximately 10)
Cow skin (4-6 large
pieces cut up into strips)
A very large bag of okra (2–3 pounds)
Small green and red chilis
Two onions
Two tomatoes
A variety of herbs
Salt (to taste)
Palm oil (two bottles—355ml x 2)
Note: Sometimes African eggplant is added, but we did not purchase any this time.
Western purveyors and enthusiasts of Louisiana gumbo might raise their eyebrows at ingredients like curded cheese, cow skin, and the hefty surplus of okra. But these are all the things that make this dish particularly West African. They seem strange to westerners because they have been lost, phased out with French and Native American influence. The gumbo that we are accustomed to in Louisiana is an amalgamation of these West African ingredients, joined with a French roux and flavored by Native American sassafras and other spices.
We made everything right in Augustine’s front yard, with various ingredients boiling over three small fires we built. Augustine doled out the chores: I gutted mackerel and sliced okra, Ben sautéed cheese and sliced cow skin, Augustine ground up shrimp and chilies into a fine paste with a stone.
"To eat the stew, we’d take a bit of fufu between the fingers and scoop the ingredients of the stew with it. The okra draws from the bowl like melted cheese from a hot New York pizza, holding bits of delicious crab, fish, cow skin, shrimp, and fried cheese." —Jody Ray
There is no roux here. Ingredients are boiled separately and added to a large pot of pungent reddish-orange palm oil. The sautéed cheese becomes hardened, almost like haloumi, and is added near the end. But what really makes West African okra stew is the copious amount of okra that cooks down for hours, creating a thick, gelatinous green sauce in which all the seasoned bits of fish, crab meat, shrimp, cow skin, cheese, and other vegetables are suspended.
Wreathed in fire smoke and boiling steam, the entire process took almost three hours to complete. We began at dusk, and by the time we sat down at Augustine’s table, the night insects had already begun to sing.
Instead of eating this with a spoon over rice, the West Africans use fufu, a sort of sticky dough made from cassava, plantains, and cocoyams. To eat the stew, we’d take a bit of fufu between the fingers and scoop the ingredients of the stew with it. The okra draws from the bowl like melted cheese from a hot New York pizza, holding bits of delicious crab, fish, cow skin, shrimp, and fried cheese.
If you can find it in the United States, West African okra stew will be an entirely new experience for gumbo enthusiasts. The gelatinous texture of the okra, and the rubbery form taken by the cow skin even after it has boiled required some adjustments from our Western palates. But we found delight in this stew, from which so much other culture has been drawn. And as for the cheese curds, they were absolutely delicious, and I’d argue an ingredient worth exploring in some Louisiana kitchens.
Check out more of Jody Ray's adventures through his project, Exit Strategy—which aims to discover more of the world through culture, conflict, and cuisine. You can find videos from his experience cooking okra stew, as well as other experiences from his time in West Africa, on the Exit Strategy Youtube.