ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN WATSON
Everyone’s talking and three giant vats are bubbling with hot stews and the blender is going off and there’s clanking and splashing. But the kitchen goes quiet when Belitha, the chef, steps over to the crock of hot oil and dips her hand in some cold batter. “Shh,” she says, “listen.” Smiling, she dollops a sizzling drop in the oil.
Today we are cooking and eating Belitha’s favourite Congolese recipes: fumbua (a wild spinach stew), a meat and aubergine stew, tshaka madesu (beans and cassava leaf stew), salade aux olives (olive salad), pili pili (chilli sauce), fufu (pounded ground rice and farina) and those sizzling doughnuts—mikate. I’m also here to learn about Migrateful, a charity that hosts cookery classes taught by refugees and migrants, and to meet its founder, Jess Thompson.