Harriet Gomez (center) founded Keur Fatou with her husband, Malick Joof (second from left) and brother-in-law Assan Joof (far right).
Harriet Gomez has an indomitable spirit. A native of the West African nation of Gambia, she lost her leg in a car accident at age five. With no dedicated amputee clinics in the country, she didn’t get her first prosthesis until age 10. Even then, it wasn’t a perfect fit — she used glue and rope to tie it to her body. “I used to cry a lot,” Gomez says. “At some points it felt like life was worthless.”
Unable to reach her full potential without an adequate prosthesis and unable to get one in her home country, she moved to the U.S. in 2001. While living in Texas, she connected with the Michigan Society To Advance Rehabilitation, a nonprofit that helps amputees. In 2006, the organization outfitted Gomez with a prosthetic leg worth $40,000. It changed her life.
“I’ve always been a strong person who wanted to be independent,” Gomez says. “It gave me the nudge that I needed to get up and tell myself, ‘You can do this.’”
Gomez, who now lives in Madison, runs Keur Fatou Catering, a company she launched in 2017. Leading a team that includes her husband and brother-in-law, who are also from Gambia, the business specializes in a West African cuisine known as “Senegambian” — a portmanteau of neighboring nations Senegal and Gambia. “I don’t want to be biased, but I personally think that Gambia and Senegal have the best food,” she says. “Flavor-wise, it’s different — the distinction is the seasoning that we use.”
Gomez sources many of her ingredients from the African and international grocery stores in Madison — there’s the African Market on Gammon Road, the African and American Store on East Johnson, and the International Market on Lien Drive. She uses a spice blend called Jumbo, which is similar to a bouillon cube, and another called Adja, a tomato-based seasoning powder.
Her favorite to cook is yasa — marinated chicken with caramelized onions — but the most iconic Senegambian meal is jollof rice, a savory, red-orange dish made with tomatoes, onions and chili peppers served with fish, beef, chicken or lamb. “In West Africa, there’s a debate over who makes the best jollof rice,” she says. “But how can [other countries] make the best jollof rice when it originated from Senegal in the first place?”
Fatou is a common name in West Africa — Gomez, her husband and another business partner all have mothers named Fatou. Keur means “house” in wolof, the language spoken in Senegal and Gambia. “Keur Fatou means Fatou’s house,” says Gomez, who learned to cook from her mother.
Keur Fatou officially debuted at Africa Fest in 2017, but Gomez and others had long cooked West African food for parties and community events. “We’re already doing this for free,” Gomez recalls thinking, “so why not start a catering company?” She connected with Merlin Mentors, an entrepreneurship program, which helped her get the business up and running. Now, the team is busy cooking for office lunches and recently catered their first wedding.
Gomez is excited to grow the business — and to introduce Madison to West African food. Eventually, she hopes to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant. East African cuisine has been available at Buraka for years, but Gomez says the two are totally different.
“It’s hard bringing a totally foreign food into the market, but sometimes you need to educate the people,” she says. “West Africa also has some great dishes.”
