IACP hightlights: Chef Pierre Thiam and fonio

A high point for me at this year's  

IACP conference in NYC was attending a session at The International Culinary Center  led by Senegalese Pierre Thiam, the fabulous chef/owner of Le Grand-Dakar, and author of Yolele! Recipes from the Heart of Senegal.  

Pierre had obvious mastery of his subject, a refreshingly calm and humble demeanor, and kept us all entranced with stories of Senegalese culture and cuisine, all the while preparing and offering samples of several delicious recipes using the  amazing tiny millet grain fonio, one of the so-called "lost crops of Africa."

 I have fond memories of time spent inTamale in northern Ghana eating a light, delicious breakfast porridge made from fonio, and was happy a few years ago to learn that Sanoussi Diakité, a Senegalese mechanical engineer, had perfected a mechanical husking machine for  processing of the tiny grain.

There was much enthusiasm at the IACP conference for discovering new grains, and the cookbook that won the Julia Child award was Maria Speck's Ancient Grains for Modern Meals, published by  Ten Speed Press. However, her Mediterranean whole grain focus is on ingredients like barley, farro, kamut, polenta and wheat berries.

One Swiss conference attender enthused to me later that Thiam's session was the best one she had attended so far (this was 4 days into a 5-day conference!) I, too, found it to be quite useful and enjoyable, even though I had to sneak out before the end to set up for the bloggers fair.

I'll post a fonio recipe of my own soon. More to come, too, about the food blogger fair and with lunch with Jessica Harris at Marcus Samuelsson's Red Rooster.

Some ingredients: millet stalks, fonio, hwentia (udah-urhirhe), akpe, etc.

While I was in California, my daughter and son-in-law took me to their favorite African food store, Specialty Foods, Inc. at 535 8th St., Oakland. I took the opportunity to stock up on some items unavailable locally in central Pennsylvania. Some of them had Nigerian? or slightly differently spelled names: millet stalks (labeled watche leaves), or hwentia (labeled udah-urhirhe), and bambara beans (called bambala beans, African yellow soy beans), along with some smoked herring powder (I'm thinking of making some shito before Thanksgiving), some Ethiopian berbere, and some fonio (aka acha), a tiny, grain, one of those "lost crops of Africa" that is one of the oldest grains of Africa. I haven't had that since I was at the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies (TICCS) several years ago. It makes a tasty, very nutritious porridge.

The millet stalks are what traditionally give waakye (rice and beans) its characteristic color. In the U.S. we generally substitute baking soda, as in the recipes linked to above.

By the way, can anyone tell me another name for the Ivorian? spice "akpe"? And information on its use? Thank you.