Green, yellow and red apron and matching hat, it is with a broad smile that Honor Toudissa opens the doors of his restaurant located in the heart of the Poto Poto district in Brazzaville. In the self-decorated room, the scent of cakes tickle the nostrils. Somewhat disconcerting, when you know that the chef is an expert in liboké, this typical dish of the Congo Basin, of the same name as his establishment. “My students’ cookies are in the oven,” he explains. At the back of the restaurant, in the kitchen, a teenager in cook’s clothes is busy. The young man, concentrated, extracts with difficulty a small quantity of dough in front of the large ball placed in front of him. “Junior * has a handicap which prevents him from moving as he wants. Working a cookie dough, making small balls and shortbread cookies helps it develop motor skills, explains the Congolese chef. And the creative process, from manufacturing to the final product, is very satisfying. His self-esteem will be all the better for it. ”
A successful chef, Honor Toudissa has also been running cooking workshops for children with disabilities for nearly twenty years. “Since the start of my career, I have always been keen to pass on my passion to young people, which moreover is one that does not always find its place in our society. Combining a love of cooking and teaching is my mantra. For me, one does not go without the other, ”he says. Today, it is therefore in partnership with the Health Center of the Little Dominican Sisters, backed by the restaurant, that Honor Toudissa is carrying out his projects. Between two lessons with the children, the chef cooks local products for the customers of his establishment.
An apprenticeship in Kenya, far from the war
At home, cooking is “a family affair”. It was his father, an agricultural engineer and passionate about gastronomy, who transmitted the virus to him. Still a child, it was by making salads that Honor made his mark. With each recipe follows the verdict of his father, who has become his official taster. And a demanding taster. “One day, I preferred to go and play football rather than cook. I made a quick salad without any willpower. My father threw it in my face, he says, amused. I never did it again. As soon as I cook, I do it 100%. I put all my heart into it. For the Congolese chef, cooking is also a matter of rigor and requirement. This is what prompted him, in 1995, to follow a hotel and management training course away from home, in Kenya. His goal then? Return to Congo, diploma in hand, and integrate the cuisine of the palace located on the island of m’Bamou in Brazzaville. Younger, Honor Toudissa did many unpaid internships there. Simply to learn.
But in 1997, civil war broke out. The hotel of his dreams is destroyed, and with it his dream of cooking there one day. First, the student is devastated. Then he thinks about what really matters to him. From Kenya, Honor Toudissa shapes her concept: that of local cuisine, with modern gastronomic techniques. When he returned to Congo in 2000, the young graduate took the plunge. He opens his own restaurant – Espace Liboké, blown away by the explosions of the Mpila weapons depot on March 4, 2012 – and offers a menu made up only of regional products, “to change the eating habits of the Congolese”. “I realized that over time, people were eating more and more frozen products, processed foods. While the Congo Basin is full of quality products, ”he laments. Recipes that the restaurateur, from a family of artists and painter himself, will be keen to present in the best possible way: “it is not because we cook in the family that the we must put aside the presentation of the dishes. This cuisine is as noble as the others ”. A winning strategy. Twenty years later, Honor Toudissa has earned his stripes, and defends his concept in the international gastronomic associations of which he is a member, like the international association Slow Food for the promotion of world cuisine. But it is in his restaurant in Poto Poto that he best defends the gastronomy of his country. Mtété mbika, a squash terrine cooked in cassava leaves, makasa ya kwanga, her grandmother’s saka saka and various maboké, so many successful recipes that make Honor Toudissa say that “if you haven’t been through at home, then you have never eaten Congolese ”. He confided in Point Afrique.
You have been a cook for twenty years today. Was it difficult back then to be a man in the kitchen?
Honor Toudissa: I suffered criticism because many thought it was not my place. For some, I was just a “kitchen boy”, a pejorative word for a little cook. But I have never had any complexes about doing this job, I have always worn my jacket with pride. And then things have changed since then. I even aroused vocations in my own entourage: the family, initially reluctant, now has six cooks! And the status of chefs, who for some have become real stars in Africa, is no longer the same. In recent years, African cuisine has grown a lot, it has become a real phenomenon.
What is your speciality ? Your favorite dish?
Without hesitation, the cassava wrapping sheets, I travel everywhere with! Initially, these sheets were used to reinforce the roofs of houses or to make mats and plates. Me, they allow me to make the dish that I prefer, the salted fish liboké (maboké in the plural). This is why I am nicknamed “chef liboké”. It’s a cooking technique that applies to beef as well as chicken or vegetables, and even saka saka – a preparation made from cassava leaves, palm oil and peanuts – that I “ liboketizes ”very often.
Are there culinary disparities between the regions of the Congo Basin?
You can find liboké everywhere, but in the North, it will most often be cooked with fish. In the South, it is preferred over pork or vegetables.
Your menu also offers desserts, a dish that is found more often in Western culture.
I was keen on it, because in Africa we have incredible fruits. This is a potential that should not be overlooked. My desserts are pure creations, based on mangoes or malombos, a fruit often used for its medicinal properties, which can also be found in West Africa. I also make syrup with tsui-téké, a fruit from the rainforest.
Do you market other products?
I make excellent jams with papaya and sorrel. I also reduce the tondolo – again a fruit of the forest – into powder, which gives a very good condiment, a bit like pepper. You can also find on my shelves tea from bulukutu, or lipia, a plant from the verbena family. For all these preparations, I only use local products which, I find, are not recognized at their fair value and whose potential is not sufficiently exploited.
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