For this third episode of Party Recipes, Marguerite Paturel takes her guests on a journey. Indeed, with her chicken Kédjenou, she pays homage to her native Ivory Coast.
The warmth of Boakyé and Abidjan, the flavors of her country, her memories… This is everything that Marguerite puts in her dishes for the end of year celebrations. Arriving in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon nine years ago, she has since revisited the essential recipes of her native Ivory Coast. For her, cooking is about remembering, and paying homage to the one who started it the first time. “My first memories of cooking are with my grandmother.”, she explains. “My basics in cooking come from her, because I grew up with it.”
Also read: Holiday recipes in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon: Between Saint-Pierre and Newfoundland, Joanne Briand reveals behind the scenes of her Christmas meal
So, when Marguerite prepares her chicken Kedjénou, nothing should be missing. The ingredients, the sauce, the spices, and even a few vegetables that she manages to have by making do. “I grow things in Nicolas’s garden, and what I can’t find, I bring from mainland France.”
Also, she even revisits traditional dishes, depending on what she finds in the archipelago. Like her alloco chicken, which she mixes with local spices. “It's a typical dish. We make it with very ripe plantains. Then, we make the pepper. It's the pepper that makes the alloco.”
Going to church, cooking, Marguerite tries to find here what she misses from her country. Particularly with Femmes de tous horizons, an association in which she is particularly involved. “I'm able to rediscover the conviviality of the holidays this way, we've already had Christmas together. And cooking is a real love story, I learned when I was littleI do this for fun.”
Allison Audoux's report on Marguerite Paturel
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