All aboard the international cruise of flavors.......This crazy cruise ship has embarked upon a world tour, with curious and hungry cachers aboard. The itinerary is every country in the world, one restaurant at a time, all without leaving the confines of Central New Jersey. 71st Stop ... Senegal!
Join the Central Jersey Cachers as we venture across the Atlantic Ocean to West Africa!
Tuesday, May 22, 2018 @ 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Long Hill Tavern
632 Meyersville Road
Gillette, NJ
Enjoy delicious food and good company as this wacky cruise ship voyages across the Atlantic Ocean to the West African country of Senegal!
The cuisine of Senegal was influenced by North African, French, and Portuguese cuisine and derives from the nation's many ethnic groups, the largest being the Wolof. Senegal was a colony of France until 1960. Ever since its colonization, immigrants have brought Senegalese cuisine to many other regions.
Because Senegal borders the Atlantic Ocean, fish is very important in Senegalese cooking. Chicken, lamb, peas, eggs, and beef are also used. Peanuts, the primary crop of Senegal, as well as white rice, sweet potatoes, lentils, black-eyed peas, okra, watermelon, and various vegetables, are also incorporated into many recipes.
Senegalese cuisine was particularly influential on Creole and Cajun dishes. Many of the ingredients that are used in Senegalese dishes traveled from West Africa to the Americas.
There are two main families of rice in the world. One is called oryza sativa, which is an Asian rice, and oryza glaberrima, which is African rice. The African rice grows in certain pockets of Africa, including Senegal. The rice that was brought to the Americas during slavery is from the exact same family of African rice. Growing rice is very difficult and requires sophisticated techniques. Certain regions of the United States (including Louisiana, South Carolina and North Carolina) have a strong rice-growing culture not only due to their similar environment to rice-growing regions of Africa, but also because of slaves from the Senegal-Gambia region who knew how to grow rice and who were taken directly to these parts of America.
Rice is but one example, but there are also other ingredients, such as black-eyed peas that originated in Senegal. A dish called Hoppin' John is well known in southern America. Senegal cuisine has the exact same dish of rice and black-eyed peas, with a few different variations. Jambalaya is an evolution of the Senegalese national dish, thiebou jen. This dish is similar to a paella, with rice cooked in a rich broth with fish and vegetables such as yuca, carrots and eggplant.
A Senegalese dish called soupoukanja is the ancestor of what is called gumbo in New Orleans. Soupoukanja is an okra dish with seafood and meat that is served over rice. While gumbo is usually thickened with okra, the technique is actually an adaptation of soupoukanja, a Senegalese soupy stew slave cooks prepared in plantation kitchens for both themselves and their owners. Gumbo actually means okra in many different languages in Africa.
World Culinary Cruise Itinerary
1 - Mexico - July 16, 2012
2 - Greece - August 23, 2012
3 - Japan - September 12, 2012
4 - India - October 11, 2012
5 - Russia - November 14, 2012
6 - Poland - December 5, 2012
7 - Ireland - January 22, 2013
8 - France - February 26, 2013
9 - Spain - March 13, 2013
10 - Thailand - April 30, 2013
11 - Portugal - May 28, 2013
12 - United States of America - June 4, 2013
13 - Afghanistan - July 11, 2013
14 - Egypt - August 6, 2013
15 - United Kingdom - September 18, 2013
16 - Sweden - October 16, 2013
17 - Peru - November 6, 2013
18 - Germany - December 20, 2013
19 - Ghana - January 7, 2014
20 - Polynesia - February 19, 2014
21 - Sri Lanka - March 13, 2014
22 - Korea - April 22, 2014
23 - Jamaica - May 22, 2014
24 - Vietnam - June 25, 2014
25 - Mexico - July 23, 2014
26 - Mongolia - August 19, 2014
27 - Persia - September 17, 2014
28 - Philippines - October 15, 2014
29 - Dominican Republic - November 19, 2014
30 - Trinidad - December 10, 2014
31 - Nigeria - January 20, 2015
32 - Lebanon - February 18, 2015
33 - Cuba - March 24, 2015
34 - Brazil - April 21, 2015
35 - Turkey - May 27, 2015
36 - Hungary - June 6, 2015
37 - Canada - July 15, 2015
38 - Guyana - August 31, 2015
39 - Ethiopia - September 8, 2015
40 - Pakistan - October 14, 2015
41 - Columbia - November 24, 2015
42 - Malaysia - December 8, 2015
43 - Argentina - January 20, 2016
44 - Cameroon - February 17, 2016
45 - Taiwan - March 22, 2016
46 - Morocco - April 26, 2016
47 - Costa Rica - May 18, 2016
48 - Uruguay - June 15, 2016
49 - Angola & Mozambique - July 12, 2016
50 - Haiti - August 30, 2016
51 - El Salvador - September 21, 2016
52 - Uzbekistan - October 19, 2016
53 - Puerto Rico - November 29, 2016
54 - Bangladesh - December 13, 2016
55 - Scotland - January 24, 2017
56 - Guatemala - February 22, 2017
57 - Venezuela - March 28, 2017
58 - Indonesia - April 26, 2017
59 - Syria - May 23, 2017
60 - Italy - June 13, 2017
61 - Ecuador - July 18, 2017
62 - Jordan - August 24, 2017
63 - Liberia - September 21, 2017
64 - Cyprus - October 25, 2017
65 - Israel - November 29, 2017
66 - Belize - December 12, 2017
67 - Slovakia - January 30, 2018
68 - Saudi Arabia - February 27, 2018
69 - Ukraine - March 9, 2018
70 - Grenada - April 24, 2018
71 - Senegal - May 22, 2018
Follow our culinary adventures throughout Central New Jersey with "The Suitcase of Destiny" and chart our virtual cruise around the world with the "World Travel Geocoin."
Where will this ship pull into port next? Only the pink flamingo knows....
