Cook's specialty is the imaginative, spicy cuisine of West Africa

By Theresa Curry

Correspondent

Rebecca Morgan never picked up a book or dialed into the Food Network when she began to cook. She grew up in Monrovia and learned to make fufu, gravy, fried potato greens and coconut candy by watching what other Liberian women were doing all around her.

"I didn't know anyone who used a cookbook," she said.

Without many processed foods or small appliances, staples like ground cassava root and various gravies and soups were made by hand or with basic tools like a mortar and pestle.

Morgan, who works for the City of Virginia Beach and lives near the city's border with Chesapeake, finds the ingredients she needs for the imaginative, spicy cuisine of West Africa in Chinese groceries and from relatives who mail them down from New York and

other large northern cities. Many of the familiar ingredients are easily found in Virginia as well as Liberia: sweet potatoes, collard greens, rice, okra and sesame seeds.

"We have very separate tasks in Liberia," she said. "All the women learn how to braid hair, cook and clean. You just grow up doing it."

Civil conflicts sometimes created problems with food supply in her native country, Morgan said.

Otherwise, the daily meals are similar to those in other West African countries, with some unique contributions from the freed American slaves who populated the country in the 1800s. Fish, plantains, sweet potatoes, cassava, onions, peppers and tomatoes form the basis of many of the meals enjoyed by Liberian families. Often, vegetables, meat and fish are cooked together for a spicy soup or thick gravy to pour over a starchy portion of cassava, rice or bread.

The day might begin with corn bread. Morgan remembers a sweet corn bread, with plenty of cinnamon; sometimes covered with Liberian gravy. Or there might be porridge and milk, or sweet potatoes, yams or plantains with salt fish (salted cod) gravy.

Although Morgan has come to enjoy American mashed potatoes, she finds the Southern gravy - meat juices and fat thickened a little with flour - to be rather bland.

"We put a lot of things in our gravy," she said.

Liberian gravy - with bits of meat and fish to flavor aromatic vegetables fried in palm oil and spiced with hot peppers -is often ladled over fufu, a fermented and gelatinous mixture of ground cassava root, which forms a soft dumplinglike base. A fresh version of fufu, called "dumboy" is easier to make and not as strong tasting. Rice is also served with various fish or meat gravies, or with sauces made from fried greens or other vegetables.

Two staple vegetables - cassava (often called yucca) and sweet potatoes - are used both for the starchy root and the green leaves.

Although the sweet potato leaves may be used at any stage of the plant's development, they're better when they're young and tender. The leaves are shredded by hand or in a blender, seasoned and cooked in palm oil until they melt into a smooth sauce. They're extremely high in iron, Morgan said. When she can't find them, she's learned to substitute spinach.

Collard greens are cooked in much the same way, seasoned and served over rice. Soup is sometimes served in one bowl, with bowls of okra, fufu and a gruel of sesame seeds added at the table.

Like the citizens of Louisiana, Liberians call sesame seeds "benne." They buy them in big bags at the market and use them toasted and pounded into a paste that flavors and enriches all kinds of sauces.

Palm oil, both in liquid form for cooking and in a solid form like butter, is used every day, Morgan said.

Rebecca is married to Lawrence Morgan, also a native Liberian who is stationed in Norfolk with the Navy. Since coming to this country nearly 10 years ago, they've sampled a lot of food that's very different from the tastes of their home.

In addition to mashed potatoes, Rebecca cooks spaghetti and lasagna and fixes a lot of salads.

"Of course, we have our share of burgers and fries," she said.

Her son J'ean, now 7, loves all kinds of American food. Her infant son, Leishieh, reflects the family's hope for their faraway, long-troubled homeland. The baby's name means "peace" in a West African dialect, and that's her deepest wish for the family and friends she left behind, Morgan said.

Theresa Curry, flavor@pilotonline.com

Corn Bread

3 boxes of corn muffin mix

2 teaspoons cinnamon, nutmeg or banana extract (or any two of the flavors together)

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 sticks of butter

1 cup of sugar or to your taste

3 eggs

2 cups of milk or water

In a bowl, mix corn muffin mixes, cinnamon, nutmeg or banana extract. Add baking powder

In a second bowl, mix sugar and butter until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time and mix.

Add dry mixture into the wet mixture. Gradually add milk or water

Preheat oven at 450 degrees. Empty mixture into a 9-inch baking pan and bake for first five minutes at 450. Then decrease temperature to 350 degrees and bake 40 minutes.

Source: Rebecca Morgan of Virginia Beach The story goes here... WASHINGTON - ONE inch here. This ONE goes out to the ONE I love. (File under fire) This ONE goes out to the one I left behind. A simple prop to occupy my.

TWO inches here. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. A Tale of TWO Cities. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done before. And I go to some sort of resting place.

THREE inches here. Commander, tear this ship apart until youve found those plans, and bring me the passengers; I want them alive. Apology accepted Captain Need. You can tell him yourself. Is this graf short, too, like the one before?

FOUR inches here. Happiness is a warm gun. Ive got blisters on my fingers. You say you want a revolution. The fad FOUR. In an octopus garden. Paul is dead. John. Paul. George.

FIVE inches here. Point to point point observation. Children carry reservations. Standing on the shoulders of giants... leaves me cold. A hundred million birds fly away. FIVE. I am the king of all I see.

SIX inches here. Spackle. Super model. Spaghetti. Syringe. Serum. Salad. Satchel. Smock.