INTELLIGENT LIFE
My Madeleine: as a pleased-with-herself graduate, Taiye Selasi thought she knew it all. But Ghana, and a bowl of soup, taught her otherwise
In 2001, over the course of the summer, my godmother taught me to cook. I’d just graduated phi beta kappa from Yale. My mother was thrilled. My godmother, less. My education, however prestigious, was patently incomplete. I could write in Yoruba, translate Latin, pick a horse hoof, play piano, spot a Botticelli—but, for shame, I couldn’t cook. The solution was simple: I would go to Ghana for a culinary apprenticeship, living in my godmother’s house while studying in her kitchen.
My godmother, like my mother, is an extraordinary cook. One of those rare human beings who, in the words of a friend, “seem to put air” into food. I’d long since marvelled at the magic she produced out of Ghana’s culinary canon, transforming into gourmet meals the fare of farmers and fishermen. There was her famously velvety garden-egg soup—an eggplant dish like caponata; her gingery “red-red”, a tomato-based stew of onions and black-eyed peas; her palava sauce, a delicious mix of leafy greens and fresh smoked fish; but above all there was her groundnut soup, that creamy dream of a stew.
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