Searching for an African market
Lately the food appreciation classes I teach at a private elementary school here in the Dsitrict have been visiting Africa as part of our virtual world culinary tour. I concede immediately that I know very little about African food (except that I love okra and grow lots of it). But I knew that at some point I would need to find a good African grocery store in the vicinity because some of the ingredients used in African cuisine simply are not to be found in the average American supermarket.
So where is the closest African market? One of my fellow instructors in the after-school program was eager to tell me. She knew exactly where a great African market was located. Except she couldn’t give me an address.
”You know that road that goes past the University of Maryland, where the Value Villiage is?” she began.
Well, I have driven by the University of Maryland a few times, so I do know some of those roads. And I think my wife is familiar with the Value Village.
“Well, you go past the Value Village. Then on the right there’s this little shopping center. It’s back behind there. And there’s a Pakistani store as well.”
Hmmm. In fact, my wife has discovered that she can get excellent driving directions from Google Earth. If you haven’t tried this, it’s very cool. It’s like driving in a car with actual photos from the road. You can look around in all directions. She has great fun tooling around with it. So we set our coordinates for the road we thought this teacher was talking about, found the Value Village sure enough and passed it in both directions, but found no sign of the little shopping center that is supposed to be home to this particular African market and the Pakistani store.
My wife was not to be defeated so easily, however. She noticed that this location was in the town of Hyattsville. So she Googled for African markets in Hyattsville and Bingo! Up came Oyingbo African International Market. Except it isn’t anywhere near the Value Village. It’s on Ager Road, just off East-West Highway. And there’s no Pakistini store.
If you’ve ever been to a small grocery in a developing country or in the islands you would instantly recognize this type of store. Behind the cashier is a large selection of African videos and music CDs. In the grocery itself there is relatively little in the way of fresh produce, but lots of canned and frozen goods. There are big jugs of palm oil, cans of evaporated milk, bags of dried herbs and greens. In fact, I found plenty of the “bitterleaf” that we were missing from the Cameroonian ndole recipe we made recently.
In the meat case is a selection of “cow feet” and tripe and other odd bits. There are huge bags of rice and flour, as well as plastic bags filled with yam flour and manioc and fu fu. On one shelf were traditional cooking implements including a giant, wooden mortar and a pestle the size of a baseball bat, only longer, made out of a tree branch, that you pound standing up, just like in the National Georgraphic films. I immediately wanted one. The price: $50. “These things have to be imported,” the woman running the store explained.
Specifically I was there to purchase some traditional African yams for this week’s class and to check the okra for freshness. Do I need to tell you that African yams are nothing like the yams we call “sweet potatoes” here? These things look vaguely like a potato–definitely of the earth–but they are huge, the size and heft of a small child. They look like little torpedos that could definitely inflict serious damage if dropped from a height.
I bought two of those, as well as two pounds of very fresh-lookng okra. I did not buy the mortar and pestle, although I was still playing wih the idea.
I couldn’t help asking the sales lady if she knew the African market near the Value Village. She shook her head, but then gave me directions to two other African markets not far from her own store. In fact, they were on my way home. One of them is on Riggs Road. I had passed right by it on my way to Hyattsville. The other is on Sargent Road, a short drive in the other direction.
At both I got big smiles and handshakes when I explained that I was teaching kids about African food. One store owner urged me to come back another time so he could teach me some of his favorite recipes.
Food has a way of bringing people together. Now, does anyone know where that African market is near the Value Village?
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, one mile from the White House.
Hi Ed,
Please let me know the African market near Sargent Road..I sometimes pass that area when I’m on the F1/F2 buses.
thx.
BR, I don’t remember the name of the market. From Riggs Road, its on Sargent Road past the K-Mart next to the CVS on the left.