For true! Says a New York Times story, For Dinner (and Fast), the Taste of Home, a great look at how different immigrant communities recreate their traditional foods in fast paced NYC.

Jennifer Gray-Brumskine, who immigrated from Liberia as a 19-year-old in the 1980s and now lives on Staten Island, does not stray too far from her native cuisine. Every Sunday, her family eats Western foods like corn bread and collard greens, she said, because that was the custom in Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves.

During the week she hews to African cuisine because, she said, it is healthier than American food. “My whole family is skinny,” she explained. It’s also because African cuisine is all her husband will eat.

Ms. Gray-Brumskine often makes fufu, a rib-sticking mash of potato starch and mashed potatoes from a box, a common American substitution for roots or yams that are used in Africa. She also makes cassava greens; she washes and grinds the leaves, then boils them in a pot with water and baking soda until they turn olive green — a process that can take two hours and often isn’t done until 11 at night. Her husband will wait and eat them then.

But when she comes home late — she works as a community organizer in Stapleton, the Staten Island neighborhood — and wants fast, satisfying food for herself and her daughter, she often makes fish like red snapper or kingfish. She slices right through the whole fish, bones and all, to make fish steaks. She sprinkles them with garlic powder and black pepper and fries them in oil. When they are browned, she adds sliced hot peppers, tomatoes and water and boils until the sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Fried red plantains are served on the side.