Mankafy Sakafo Hits America

In 2005, I traveled to Madagascar, where I lived for nearly five months. I wish I could say that I had a good reason for wanting to go, but really, I just liked the idea of living in a totally opposite condition from Manhattan, where I’d lived for two years at that point.

The purpose of my travel was to write a cookbook of Malagasy cuisine because the food of Madagascar is not documented nearly as well as it could be. In fact, in my preparation for the trip, all I could find was a few recipes on the U-Penn website and a small blurb in my Larousse Gastronomique.

Luckily, a culinary play land awaited me. Lagouste, coconuts, bitter greens, bananas of all shapes and sizes, avocadoes the size of grapefruits all made appearances on my plate in the time I was in the field.

I lived in multiple places on the island, from the coast to the highlands. I lived in the capital, Antananarivo, and I lived in small villages in which I was the only foreigner who’d ever visited. Everywhere that I went, the fare was slightly different as a result of ingredients being hyper-local due to limited transportation systems. In each location, I stayed with the Malagache. If that meant sharing a bed, I was glad to snuggle in. If that meant sleeping in a boat, I let the waves rock me to sleep. Sound magical? It was. I think about it everyday.

I documented all of the dishes that I learned to make from my many “moms” and my many culinary mentors there. When I returned, I tested everything and reworked many recipes to embrace Western kitchens (since everything was originally prepped over an open fire).

It has been two years since I returned and the cookbook is finally available to the public on Amazon. It’s full of delicious recipes that are extremely versatile and useful. Nothing uses too many ingredients, and no method is too complex. Better yet, all of the recipes can be taken on camping trips or to tiny kitchens.

A few months ago I made a Malagasy dinner for the Culinistasä. If you are interested in a Malagasy meal, feel free to ask your Culinistaä! And if you don’t have a Culinistaä, you may just have to buy the book!