Sierra Leone's staple food is rice. Most meals consist of rice and an assortment of other fruits, vegetables and meat products. These often include eggplant, tomatoes, chicken, beef, and even fish. Even Nina brought such ingredients when she went to Romania to see her grandparents in her book Wild Flower when she states: "We carried food essentials that would allow me to cook for my white family the kind of food I now ate in Africa: Nigerian palm-oil, white rice, grated cassava leaves, egusi, hot peppers, powdered craw-fish, okra, potato leaves, peanut paste, maggi cubes, a big bunch of plantains and a bag of dried fish to use in all the stews I planned to make." (88) The people of Sierra Leone also add lots of flavor to their food through sauces by using peppers and various plant leaves. One notable delicacy is bones, more commonly chicken bones, because the bone structure is easily discarded to reach the bone marrow inside that is sweet in taste. Specialty foods of the country include, groundnut stew, cassava bread, pepper soup, yebe, and moin moin (World Travel Guide). (To see a video of how the people of Sierra Leone cook click here!) Food not only ties into the dining room and community level within Sierra Leone, but also within their own rituals that they uphold within their land. If a village elder or even a head of a family states that a certain food, oil, or even a way a certain meal should be cooked as taboo, then it is embedded within the village or family to never prepare or serve that meal ever again. Going against this taboo would mean that their ancestors would be very upset with the village or family and discontinue their watch over them (Countries and their Cultures).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Sierra_leone_ethnic_1969.jpg
Rituals, such as marriage, are different when compared to how it is done within the Western culture. There may be some couples within the country that marry for love, but most of the time people are married only by arrangement between families. Within Sierra Leone it is natural for the women to marry at a young age as well due to the fact that within it's culture women have less authority then men. This means that they have less education and status, but are still the ones who are doing the most labor within the family (Countries and their Cultures). However, marriage within Sierra Leone is a step that proves that you are mature enough to make a life on your own! When a man wants to marry there is something that he must do first in order to accomplish this. He must gather what is called a bride-price. It may sound different to Western culture, but the groom literally pays with cloth that is well made and money that he obtains and gives it to his soon-to-be bride and her family. Once this is done the marriage can be arranged officially and have plenty of rice to be handed out until everybody at the ceremony has had their fill and walk out of the ritual as man and wife (Countries and their Cultures)! Even Nina's father somewhat abides to this view of women and how marriage should be like for when he states, "A woman's destiny was to be a wife and depend completely on her husband. My father believed this in his heart, yet still insisted on giving us the best education available at the highest cost. What a contradiction!" (Smart 82)
To find out more detail click on these links:
http://mgafrica.com/article/2014-07-18-20-foods-that-missed-the-list
http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Sierra-Leone.html
http://www.worldtravelguide.net/sierra-leone/food-and-drink
