In Eugene, one can come across the tastiest, most regionally diverse and often healthiest bowl, plate or fixing of one sort or another by merely placing an order at a food cart, waiting five minutes or so and then continuing along.
Of the food carts littered about the campus area on Kincaid Street, one of the newer additions on the scene is Eliman Gibba’s Sunset Hut. Gibba’s cart sits across from Rennie’s Landing in front of McKenzie Hall and radiates some fruity, tropical, yet distinctly irie African vibes reflected from Gibba’s home country, Gambia.
Sunset Hut is something you might run into on a stroll through the Gambian capital of Banjul or in the streets of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, offering the traditional West African dish Mafé.
Mafé consists of a bed of rice under a spiced peanut sauce, topped with various vegetables like potatoes, carrots and onions, and kicked up a notch with some garlic and other African spices.
The dish varies wildly from one chef to the next in West Africa, but Gibba’s is a solid rendition of the Senegambian variation.
Right now other menu options include burrito wraps that can be vegetarian, chicken or pork, as well as a few different beverage offerings, but Gibba would like to see things progress to where he can put more traditional African dishes on the menu.
“If I were able to move (the Mafé) faster, then I’d drop some of (the burritos) and put in more African food,” Gibba said. “You don’t just don’t come and change it all the way, so I’m going to slowly do it, and it would be less prep for me, less money for me to put it together and very simple.”
Some other traditional dishes would be Thieboudienne (tay-boo-den) or Thiebou Yapp (tay-boo-yap). Thieboudienne is a classic rice and fish dish that incorporates a tomato sauce in addition to onions and various other spices, while Thiebou Yapp uses other meat, such as marinated lamb or beef, similarly.
“We just do one dish, we just do Mafé because people are familiar with peanut butter,” Gibba said. “Mafé is popular, people love it.”
When Gibba’s not working at the Sunset Hut, you might find him at his other operation, World Flavors, at the Marketplace in the EMU on Mondays and Fridays.
He is active in the local African community and his daughter’s (who passed away January of 2009) charity foundation, which helps support various organizations like Greenhill Humane Society, Makindu Children’s Program and Save the Children: Africa.
While visiting family in Gambia last month, he used funds raised through the foundation to bring soccer balls to his village and an adjacent village’s school.
Gibba has future plans for fundraisers and communal events that Eugene’s African community can unite behind and celebrate its rich cultural history.
“My intention is to do an African fundraiser with African music and African food with some hip-hop and some reggae, and do a fundraiser to create awareness and also to bring us together,” Gibba said.
Gibba’s Sunset Hut is just one of many food carts that serve as a metaphor for the delightful array of stories and delicious dishes that encompass Eugene.
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