I'm a big fan of trying new foods everywhere you go. Maybe it's because food is important in my family (when we're all together, we usually are planning the next meal while still eating the current one) or maybe it's just because I like food, but I always feel that you can't even attempt to understand a culture without eating its food. So I try to never say no to trying something new, no matter what.
For example, I was recently standing at a carrefour (Let me just note here that sometimes I have to use a french word, because there is no good English equivalent. For example, carrefour literally means intersection. But it really means an intersection where a lot of cars and busses stop, many people come and go, and thus an active market springs up, usually with at least one bar). Anyway, I was waiting at a carrefour for someone I was supposed to meet - not an uncommon occurrence here, since I have not yet managed to drop my American obsession with punctuality - and observing the market ladies. This makes for a very entertaining people-watching session: women walk around, some pudgy, some as thin and dry as the corn stalks in dry season, all wrapped in colorful pagne with baskets or buckets or flat platters or giant cook pots on their heads and trying to get passerby to buy. Each of these head-toppers is filled to the brim with beignets (essentially big fried donut holes without the sugary goodness), or prepared food like stew or spaghetti or rice, or mini-pyramids of 4 green oranges, or big bunches of bananas, or mountains of fresh peanuts, or these things called prunes but which are definitely not dried plums, or or or… So obviously I like to peer onto the top of every lady's head to see what I can see. And just last week, I saw something I'd never seen before: hard little black thingers with green stems sticking out the top, either a bit wrinkly or full and round, somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball, stacked in fours like the green-oranges on top of platters on top of heads. I walked right up to that mama and asked what they were, only to discover they were something I'd heard of: fruit de la passion (passion fruit). Well, I'd sure never pictured passion fruit like that. I pictured it bright colors, orange and yellow and hot pink, and more like the size of a small (by American standards, that is) grapefruit. But then, I didn't expect pineapples or brussel sprouts to grow like that either. So then I asked how to eat them. She responded with amusement, Just cut it open and suck! I decided with a shrug I'd figure that helpful advice out later and bought 'em.
When Danielle and I later cut open a passion fruit, we figured out why she said suck… Inside the hard, leathery shell is a snotty, seedy, semi-liquid, semi-stringy orangey mess. You have no choice but to suck it down and crunch the seeds… And it's delicious. Sweet and tangy and strong flavored. It's things like passion fruit that make me understand why some people (like Cameroonians) consider fruit to be dessert! (But it doesn't help with vegetables as dessert. I do not understand either the American version - carrot cake - nor the Cameroonian version - salad with lots of mayonnaise and vinegar and oil and sometimes even sweetened condensed milk.) Anyway, passion fruit are awesome.
On the other hand, sometimes it does not end well.
Recently, my counterpart Delphine and a lovely Cameroonian-Parisian named Blandine have adopted me on all their adventures, including an elementary school Christmas party or two, some traditional ceremonies, and OF COURSE meals. When they discovered Danielle and I had never eaten ncui (that spelling is totally made up; it's pronounced n-KWEE), the local specialty, it was immediately decided that we would have it for dinner with couscous de maïs (which Danielle pointed out is suspiciously like grits when right off the fire) and legumes (any dish made with boiled spinach-like leaves, oil, and spices). Danielle and I, unsuspecting, were all for it.
Later sat in the kitchen with the two cooks (not Blandine or Delphine, but Blandine's aunt and some mystery girl), the warmest room in the house. We had only the smoky light of the cook fire to see by. Mystery Girl pulled some soupy mixture off the fire and immediately started rapidly stirring it, bottom-top-bottom-top, with her flat right hand. (Like her identity, how she avoided burning herself remains a mystery.) It bubbled and made wet flopping noises.
Me: with concern Uhhhh… Danielle… I think that's dinner.
Danielle: No, I think she's washing some pagne or something. Turns to Mystery Girl and speaks in French. Excuse me madame, what are you doing?
Mystery Girl: Preparing ncui.
Me: concern mounting. Yep, we're eating that.
Danielle: … It looks like a giant dead jellyfish.
Me: ….ew, it really does.
Danielle: Or like gelatinous soap, look at the bubbles.
Me: Shudders.
Danielle: To Mystery Girl, in French. What is it made out of? How do you prepare it?
Mystery Girl: Still in French. Well, you take these ncui sticks and you peel the bark off and boil the bark for along time. Then you mix it up well. Then you pick out the dirty parts. Then you mix in the spices really well so that it tastes good. And eat it with couscous.
Me: We're eating boiled bark.
When we ate it later - with our hands, mind you - it was the texture it looked like it would be. Like mutilated jellyfish. Like snot. Not the unexpected liquidy-ness of the passion fruit, but full-on snotty January cold snot running down your throat. And it didn't want to separate itself, like really hot pizza when the mozzarella cheese strings won't break when you try to put them in your mouth, and you just keep pulling and pulling but the string only gets longer, except the snot version instead of the delicious cheesy version. Have I said snot enough times in the paragraph? Oh, and it tasted overwhelmingly of licorice.
In the future, I will be doing my absolute best at avoiding this food forever. Next on my to-eat list, I'm told, is taro. Get excited, everyone.
In other, non-food-related news, I've officially been in my village of Banso'a for one month! One down, twenty-three to go. :)
grt
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