Leaving Tech to Embrace the Flavors of Home
An Interview with Nafy Flatley of San Francisco
This week’s interview was possible thanks to the help of No Immigrants No Spice, a non-profit that aims to “shed light on the positive impact immigrants have in this country and on our collective culture.” NINS has connected me with a few cooks over the past couple of years (including Candice and Jelmer), and they were kind enough to put me in touch with Nafy Flatley, the owner of Teranga. Teranga which started as a juice business focused on introducing customers to baobab and has evolved to include a stall selling African food at the La Cocina Municipal Marketplace in San Francisco. Nafy told me about what brought her to the U.S. from Senegal and shared her favorite fusion meal: tacos made with leftover maafè. Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed:
Nafy Flatley
My mother sent me here to go to school. I was in my early 20s. I studied international business and marketing. I went to Berkeley and then after that I transferred to USF—University of San Francisco. That’s where I graduated from.
I was a marketing director and I was working for start-up companies. When the economy started getting a little bit challenging, in 2008, I started looking into different ways of making income. It wasn’t that easy, when I had my son, to work at corporate companies where I didn’t have flexibility. I didn’t see much support from my employer at the time. At the same period of time, my mom got diagnosed with early dementia, so she also really needed support.
I decided that maybe starting my own business would be a better way of doing it. And so that’s when I started looking into the food world. When I was in college, I used to cook when we had potluck at school or International Day celebrations. And people always used to say, “You should open a food business.” I started with the juices, the energy bars, the spice blends. Once in a while I’d have a salad or I’d have something cold I could add to the mix while I was selling the juices.
Every time I used to be at the farmers market, I’d have a lot of expats or people who had gone to Senegal asking me, “Oh, do you know how to make this dish I was eating in Senegal?” So, working with La Cocina, I started reworking some of the recipes that I grew up with.
I started talking to my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and cousins to see what were the sorts of dishes that we used to make at home in Senegal that they are making here, when they miss them—asking which ones they are making, how long does it take them to make them, and where are they finding the ingredients. That’s how I finalized some of the recipes that I have now in my restaurant, which is at the Tenderloin [inside the La Cocina marketplace].
The dish that I really cherish is maafè, which is the peanut soup dish. It’s a dish that’s relatively easy, and when I first came to the United States, I was very shocked to see how much Americans love peanut butter. I mean, when they first showed me that they were eating peanut butter-jelly, I was like Wow, that’s the most disgusting thing ever. How could you eat peanut butter-jelly? And they’re putting it in their kids’ lunchboxes! So, I’m like, I have better than that. And to tell you the truth, until this day, I have never had peanut butter-jelly. Maybe someday someone will convince me to have peanut butter-jelly. I have three boys, and I have never made it for them.
Also, maafè symbolized, in my family, whether my mom had money or not. Every time she would make it with meat or with seafood, that was a sign for us, in the house, that Ooo, Mommy has money. Because she was a single mother raising five kids, and that meant that she had extra money and she was able to afford to buy us meat to eat in this dish. If she didn’t put anything in it, we were like Uh-oh. This is the time of the month that we don’t want to be bothering Mommy with stuff.
My mom, she was very food oriented. A foodie, in a way, like you say these days. She was always very conscious and very strict about what went in our bodies, because all her daughters—we are three, I have two sisters—we all have sickle cell trait. So, she always wanted to make sure that we ate healthy. She would make fresh food for us from the farm that we had at home in the backyard or the farm that we had a little farther down, in her parents’ village. She would really make things that were less fried, more so baked. If it wasn’t not baked, it would be things that she would just make fresh. A lot of the juices that I’m making and the energy bars I’m making are influenced by her. A lot of the superfoods I’m making are also from her, because those are ingredients that she exposed me to growing up.
You know, Senegal is influenced by Arab culture. We eat couscous, jollof rice; we eat our Senegalese national dish which is the Thiéboudienne (it’s a fish and rice dish). We ate a lot of fish at our house; we ate some meats, chicken, too. And she would make a lot of vegetables, which I used to hate when I was little. But now I wish I could have those dishes. As dessert, she would make a lot of ice cream and she would make a lot of popsicles, all made out of fresh fruits or fresh vegetables. The one thing she would make that was fried (but was really super delicious and tasty) was beignets. She had a certain style and different types of beignets that she used to make for some desserts.
I start cooking when I was eight, and from eight I started cooking for my whole entire family. We were like 12 people. I would cook for all of those people in the household.
Growing up in Africa, especially if you are a girl, it’s very important for you to know how to cook, how to take care of a house. That’s a way for you to be attractive when it’s time for you to be married. You have to know how to cook, you have to know how to keep a house. Those are two things that are very vital, and they teach girls at a very young age. And there are some particular ways that we need to know how to cook, certain things that will put you apart from everyone else. I learned all those things. Like, there’s a particular way the way we make cereal, there’s a particular way that we make couscous; those are taught to young girls when they are very little, and you master that. And once you master that, you are a level in the society that is higher than anybody else. Knowing how to do these particular things, that sets you apart from the group. And I was able to be so close to my mother that I was able to master those things.
In California, I just adapted myself to whatever ingredients I had. Like, one way that I cook a Thiéboudienne, the Senegalese national dish, is there’s this particular fish that’s air dried with salt, and it has this umami taste. So, when I couldn’t find it, I just went and found similar fish at either Filipino markets or Chinese markets or Thai markets. Either dry fish or shrimp paste or something that has those flavors that I know will make a difference in the dish. And I use that instead. For some vegetables, like, you know, yucca, which is cassava, I just start looking and going into different markets here—whether it’s the farmers market or ethnic markets—trying to find those products or just find something with a similar taste or look I could maybe substitute for it. Like, the tomato paste that I was used in Senegal was made by my mom—we would make our own tomato paste. Here, I use the Whole Foods 365 organic paste. In Africa we use a lot of broken rice; here, I’m just using jasmine rice, or, if I don’t have jasmine rice, I use basmati rice or whatever rice I’m able to find. Sometimes I even use sticky rice, Japanese rice, and things like that. I substitute with what I have, and I try it and taste it and see. If it ends up working, great. If it doesn’t work, the next time I’ll get something different.
At home, I also make tacos and I make burritos; that’s just from being part of a beautiful community at La Cocina and being surrounded by a lot of beautiful chefs that know how to make delicious burritos or that know how to make delicious tacos. I mean, in Senegal, we don’t really have tacos. I sometimes make them the way I’ve learned from friends at La Cocina; I also make it my own way. Especially the fillings, for the tacos and stuff. Like, the salsa cocida that I use could be different from the salsa cocida that someone else could be using in Mexico, because I add moringa broth and I add baobab. I add African bird eye chile, which is totally different from the South American chile. So those are the different things that I use to kind of make it my way, make it different. And another thing that I make: I make a maafè burrito! What I do is I take the tortilla, and I put the rice and I put the maafè sauce, and some spinach or arugula, and then you just roll it, and that’s your burrito—your Senegalese-style burrito.
Another thing is that I reform my samosas. In Senegal, we do have some kind of samosas, and we do have empanadas—we call them pasteles in Senegal—but I kind of reform those and look at the way they’re doing them here. The way that we do them in Senegal is with a different dough, whereas here, and in South America, some people use warm water or warm milk. Or at some places they say the water has to be cold, so it gets flakey. And then you go to another part, like El Salvador, or you go to Guatemala, and they say, “Oh, no no no. You’ve got to make your milk warm because you want your dough to be bready. When you are eating it, it feels like you are eating bread.” So, I kind of change it up and make it both ways for my kids, and then they always tell me which one is their preference.
Even the way I make omelets is different. I add a lot of cheese in it, and I add a lot of scallions, and I also add, sometimes, a lot of turkey. But in Senegal, I’ve never, ever had omelet with meat. It’s either onions or tamarind sauce; mix it together, make your omelet, and eat it with bread—you’re done. But here, you add very different things.
My kids ask for mac and cheese, which is just like peanut butter-jelly—I don’t eat mac and cheese. I’m just not a mac and cheese person. I did go to New Orleans, and I had a little bit of mac and cheese from a very nice restaurant, but I’m still not very keen on mac and cheese. So that’s one of them. The other food that they also usually ask for is hot dogs.
Zacharia [my son] wants me to tell you that I “make the better pancakes.” The way I make it, I just use regular flour, and then I add a little bit of date syrup and milk, and if I don’t want to add regular milk, I add coconut milk. And I put nutmeg. They’re always telling me, “Mommy, why, when we eat other people’s pancakes, it doesn’t taste the same?” And I say, “Because not many people put nutmeg.”
Maafè Tacos
This recipe for maafè tacos is extremely flexible—it’s basically a way that Nafy uses up leftover maafè, and she’ll use whatever kind she happens to have made. It includes a recipe for her homemade maafè, which is great served on its own, with rice or couscous, with some peanuts, sumac, and cilantro (as in the photo above). You can also add meat or fish to it. My suggestion is to double up the recipe, enjoy it for dinner, and then use the rest for tacos the following day.
Serves 4-6
For the Maafè
½ cup organic creamy peanut butter
3 cups vegetable stock, broth or water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 red onion, medium dice
1 bell pepper, stem and seeds removed, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 habañero, whole with the stem on
1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
2 cups diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon tamarind paste
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 Bay leaf
1 cup diced sweet potato and/or butternut squash
1 cup diced turnips or potatoes
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced cassava
2 teaspoons sea salt, plus more to taste
1 tablespoon Teranga baobab powder (optional)
Cracked black pepper, to taste
6-10 okra whole okra pods (optional)
1 cup spinach, whole moringa leaves, or baobab leaves (optional)
Ground sumac, to garnish
Thinly sliced celery, to garnish
Cilantro, to garnish
For the Tacos
Corn tortillas
Lettuce or cabbage, thinly sliced
Pickled onions (see below)
Mango salsa (optional; see below)
Cilantro, thinly sliced
Peanuts (optional)
Make the Maafè
Combine the peanut butter with 1 cup of warm vegetable stock and stir to dissolve to a smooth sauce.
In a large saucepan, heat up the oil over medium heat and add in the onions and bell peppers. Sauté until soft but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add in the minced garlic and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
Add in the tomato paste, stirring to evenly coat the vegetables. Allow to cook until the color turns brick red, about 3-4 minutes. Add in the chopped tomatoes with their liquid. Stir and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any stuck bits. Allow the sauce to come up to a simmer.
Stir in the peanut butter mixture and the remaining stock, broth or water. Add in the tamarind paste, fish sauce and bay leaf. Let sauce simmer, covered over low heat till slightly thickened, about 30 minutes. Stir frequently to keep from burning.
Add in the sweet potatoes, butternut squash, turnips, cassava, habanero, and carrots. Season sauce with salt and black pepper and allow to cook until vegetables are just tender, about 12-15 minutes.
Sprinkle in the baobab powder, if using, then stir in the okra and spinach, if using. Season with more salt to taste, if necessary.
Assemble the Tacos
Top each tortilla with a scoop of maafè, a bit of lettuce or cabbage, some pickled onions, a drizzle of salsa, and some cilantro and peanuts.
Pickled Onions
Cut a red onion into thin slices. In a small bowl, combine the onion with a couple very big pinches of salt and a splash of white wine vinegar. Mix everything well, then let the onions sit, mixing them up occasionally to distribute the liquid, until they’ve softened, about 30 minutes.
Mango Salsa
1 cup diced fresh mango
1 tablespoon chopped shallot
1 scotch bonnet or habañero chile
Juice of 2 limes
Salt to taste
Mint or cilantro, thinly sliced
Blend the mango, shallot, chile, lime juice, and a pinch of salt until smooth, then stir in the mint or cilantro.
More California Stories to Read, Watch, and Listen To
My favorite bit of food journalism this week was the food segment on Forum about unusual places to find food around the Bay Area—great spots in gas stations, liquor stores, etc. I can’t wait to hit some of the places the guests and listeners suggested! The Sacramento Bee also ran a similar story that offers a roundup of fun snacks from the city’s corner stores. I also really appreciated the LA Times’ piece about where to eat to support the city’s Oaxacan community.
We’re still smack in the middle of Diwali; even if you don’t usually celebrate, it’s worth checking out KQED’s piece about Diwali treats you can make at home. (They also have a fun piece about Just One Cookbook, the popular Japanese food blog written by the Bay Area’s Namiko “Nami” Hirasawa Chen.) If you’re looking forward to Halloween, check out LA Magazine’s recipes for spooky cocktails.
Photos: Georgia Freedman, Courtesy Nafy Flatley (2), Georgia Freedman