It is consumed in the four corners of Cameroon. In all its regions, homes, restaurants, on the tables of official ceremonies, weddings, baptisms, funerals, seminars… Ndolé, a dish made of vegetables and peanuts, is almost always on the menu. Less presumptuous than the famous “Chicken DG”, “the ndolé is the national dish of excellence in Cameroon”, asserts Victoire Ndedi. In the Deido district of Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital, this 35-year-old woman with an infectious smile is presented by her neighbors as the “perfect ndolé cook”, “the one who knows her preparation from A to Z, as our parents did. “. Victoire is regularly “requested to cook pots of ndolé with shrimp, meat or smoked fish”.
Preparation is slow and requires “hours of patience and concentration,” says the mother of seven. Because ndolé, the Cameroonian name for vernone – a perennial plant from the large Asteraceae family – is bitter. To reduce this bitterness and maintain its green color, it must be washed “carefully”.
“I put rock salt in the first boil. If it’s still bitter, I keep boiling it. When it’s ready, I squeeze it and prepare the other ingredients,” explains the cook. After soaking the peanuts for hours to soften them, she adds onions and garlic before crushing them with a stone like her mother did. Subsequently, Victoire heats palm oil: “But without bleaching it. It’s quite a technique! She gradually adds peanuts, ndolé, shrimp or smoked fish. Whether it’s for his family or big ceremonies, “everything is always done the old fashioned way” with the same ingredients.
“Preserve the traditional form”
According to Alain Roger Pegha, initially, ndolé was the dish of the peoples living in the Littoral region and its surroundings. According to the historian, professor at the University of Douala, this dish has become famous nationally and internationally because of its “exceptional culinary virtues”, the “medicinal particularities” of its leaves, “the quality of its cooking and its taste” and the fact that it is eaten with “all kinds of complements”: cassava tubers, cassava sticks, miondo (manioc pasta crushed and cooked in leaves), plantain, yam, rice… For the As a teacher, the export of the dish beyond regional borders was facilitated by the geographical position of Douala, a “cosmopolitan city”. “It is even said that when you arrive in Cameroon, you must first eat ndolé, he says, sitting behind his desk cluttered with documents. There are of course other dishes. But the ndole is at the center. »
“Taste the most famous Cameroonian dish, ndolé, with Kylian Mbappé”, rejoiced Francis Ngannou in a Facebook post. The photo shows the boxer, star of mixed martial arts, sitting alongside the Paris-Saint-Germain striker, whose father is of Cameroonian origin, during his time in Cameroon. At Fouquet, a restaurant in the economic capital where music stars, football stars and politicians rub shoulders, “Ndolé has an important place, one of the most consumed, underlines André Clovis Wahnz, the director of the place. We cook it to order and its taste can’t be found anywhere else. The same since 2012. Some people think that it is the same person who cooks the ndolé du Fouquet. This is not the case. »
The secret ? The restaurant relies on the composition and weight of the ingredients for each dish ordered. In the kitchens, Vitalis Amungwa, “the artificer” (assembler of condiments), watches over the grain. He monitors purchases, composes, mixes, measures, adjusts before sending to the cooks. “A step followed to the letter every day. That’s why customers love it,” he said.
“If ndolé is so famous, it is also because many Cameroonians have appropriated the recipe,” says Professor Pegha. Some add other ingredients. Leek, ginger, celery… “A revisited ndolé does not have the same flavor as the one cooked the old-fashioned way”, however wishes to correct Julie Epanlo. According to the coordinator for the Littoral region of the “culinary arts” pole of the ministry of arts and culture, to “preserve the traditional form of ndolé”, the government is working to set up spaces for the consumption of dishes 100% premises. “Today, we are also thinking of online platforms where restaurants cooking traditional dishes as our parents bequeathed to us will be listed. In one click, every Cameroonian will be able to go to the source,” concludes Julie Epanlo.