ABSTRACT
This has been referred to by a nineteenth-century observer as the national dish of Sierra Leone.1 'Every country has its national dish and "ground nut soup", a rich white compound of boiled fowl and the almond-like kernel of the groundnut is one of the grand dishes of this part of the world.' This Sierra Leonean version of the dish was given to me by a Freetown housewife. The most important ingredients are groundnuts, which provide the thickening medium. In any market in Freetown you will find tables on which are set out mounds of sand-coloured balls, which are sold for a few pence each. These are groundnut balls. Groundnuts are boiled in their shells; then the shells are removed and the nuts roasted. When the nuts have cooled, their skins are removed and the nuts are ground on a grinding-stone or pounded into an oily paste. The paste is mixed with salt and formed into the small balls which are found on market stalls. However, as the western housewife cannot buy the nuts prepared in this way, she may use peanut butter as an alternative.
