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Anchor Marco Werman gets a take on Secretary of State Clinton’s visit to Cape Verde from Cape Verdeans living in Boston. See photos and watch a video.
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MARCO WERMAN: Mrs. Clinton ended her Africa trip today in the Atlantic Ocean archipelago of Cape Verde – an independent nation since 1975. The singer Cesaria Evora may be the only association some Americans have with Cape Verde. And if you’ve been to Africa, you might know Cape Verde as a refueling stop. Now, it would be hard for me to get to Cape Verde and back in a day. But I can come here – this is the Dorchester section of Boston, where there are many Cape Verdeans living. In fact, there are many Cape Verdeans all over New England, about half a million or so, which is almost the same number as live in Cape Verde itself. So here we are at Restaurante Cesaria in Dorchester, and I’m meeting Jose Barros, who is currently a community organizer; is that correct?
JOSE BARROS: Yes.
WERMAN: Jose, you used to work for the Cape Verdean Consulate. To your recollection, who is the last highest-ranking US official to visit Cape Verde?
BARROS: I cannot recall.
WERMAN: So this is a pretty important visit, for Secretary of State visiting Cape Verde and meeting with the Prime minister?
BARROS: Yes, I think it’s huge for the country, especially for people to know that we are there – those 10 islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean – and we are part of Africa.
WERMAN: Do you feel African? I mean, there’s been such a history of Portuguese dominance in Cape Verde and the proximity to Europe –
BARROS: Uh-huh.
WERMAN: One might think that you feel more European. But do you feel a part of Africa?
BARROS: Yeah. We are part of Africa. There is no way to deny it. We are so close to it. We can also not deny what we got from European countries, but the main root, it’s Africa.
WERMAN: On some of Hillary Clinton’s other stops in Africa, the countries are doing so-so to, quite frankly, miserable. Yet Cape Verde is being offered by US officials as a kind of model for democracy in Africa. Is that in fact the case right now?
BARROS: I think we are proud for what we have accomplished in so little time. I think [INDISCERNIBLE] time we had nothing, so we had a lot of questions. “Is this going to work?”
WERMAN: Is what going to work? Independence?
BARROS: Independence. Yeah. Being away from Portugal. But then you have your destiny in your hands, so you are responsible for your country and not someone else. That way you cannot blame it on someone else.
WERMAN: So before Hillary Clinton flies out tonight, what is the one thing that you recommend she do before she leaves Cape Verde?
BARROS: I hope that she will try the Cape Verdean food.
WERMAN: Well, that’s a convenient answer, because Restaurante Cesaria is co-owned by Jose Barros’s brother, Tony Barros.
TONY BARROS: This is our kitchen. This is our chef, Carlos Ponce. It looks like he’s preparing Arroz Marisco. It’s like a paella. It’s rice mixed with almost every type of seafood you can think of – shrimp, octopus, calamari – one of our most popular dishes.
WERMAN: You know, with a lot of African food, it’s hard to find certain key ingredients that just bring that kind of West African taste to it. Do you have any problem finding ingredients here in the Boston area?
BARROS: A lot of the Spanish seasonings are similar to the Cape Verdean – to Cape Verdean seasoning.
WERMAN: And obviously seafood isn’t a problem here in the Boston area, to get?
BARROS: Fortunately not. We can get almost every type of seafood, even Strawberry grouper, which is one of the Cape Verdeans’ most favorite fishes.
WERMAN: Strawberry grouper? Never even heard of it.
BARROS: Yeah.
WERMAN: It sounds delicious.
BARROS: It is. It’s a red fish. It’s flaky; it’s very tasty. So we usually get it here from, like, Brazil.
WERMAN: So what do you think Hillary Clinton should eat in Cape Verde to get a real sense of what the average Cape Verdean eats?
BARROS: Hillary? I’m sure they gave her some kachupa, and I hope she tried it. Kachupada is a simmered stew of hominy.
WERMAN: A cornmeal?
BARROS: Well, it’s dried corn, and it’s cooked for about 2, 3 hours, depending on what you put in it. It’s usually made with pork, beans, kale, yucca, and it’s very rich. Kachuparica means that it’s rich with very different ingredients. So hopefully Hillary Clinton tried some of this stuff while she was there.
WERMAN: If she didn’t, she really missed out. That’s Tony Barros. You can get a peek inside his kitchen at Restaurante Cesaria at theworld.org.
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