Thursday, July 12, 2007
Half-assed Disclaimer
So I'm going to attempt a new concept with this blog, as my devotion to the 'pick a random picture and describe it' motif is clearly weaning. Since uploading the pictures is the difficulty, I'm going to forgo them unless I have one really pertinent to my topic (I mean, if I'm talking about fashion, NOT including the pic of the functionary sporting the 3-piece dinosaur print suit with straw cowboy hat and neon orange Puma slides would just be negligent). I came to realize the other day that my tightest emails and snippets involve me elaborating on a theme, so I'm going to describe village life in segments, covering each subject area as completely as possible before general malaise and desire to forget my surroundings at imdb.com take over the proceedings. If pictures are more your jib, there's a few assorted shots on facebook, and more to come after my strongly worded letter to the nation's government, unmasking the REAL development crisis (slow jpeg upload speeds), is received and acted upon. Until then, I guess just imagine me hanging out in whatever you conceive Africa to be; in other words, yes, I'm touring a war-torn village with Angelina and Oprah until my date to a female circumcision ceremony, after which I will sponsor 1 child with $20 a month ($4 of which she will see), raise a lion cub on grubs and good-natured apathy, run from a dude with a machete, encourage my boobs to sag to my mid-thigh by tying a baby to one and an anti-apartheid sign to the other, and devise a way to extract billions in oil revenue without paying my host government a cent in taxes. Oh yeah, and I'm doing all of this using ONLY clicks and tribal dancing to communicate. Hope you enjoy the new format, and dear god quit sending me emails telling me to update my blog...
Traditional Meals
Nourishment in a village is a curious thing. On the one hand, you're eating exclusively fresh, unpackaged and preservative-free food. If you're chomping ona steak kabob, you can rest assured the cow was killed that day, and it's head is probably still resting next to the skin and entrails on your butcher's roadside table, staring at you. If your friend gives you a banana, she probably carted herself out to the grove outside of town to pick it. Not bad.
On the other hand, since cultural traditions and the realities of the desert dictate an emphasis on quantity, availability and food that makes you feel fullest, the meals prepared from these fresh ingredients is extremely hit-or-miss. Take the basic staple, couscous. First, a few words about terminology. The French is couscous, but this isn't your mother's couscous (or your friend Susanne's). It's comprised of whatever carb or starch you have a surplus of (normally corn or millet) ground into a powder and mixed with boiling water, forming a thick, chunky paste that tastes like gritty, well, grit. Revolutionary concepts like 'adding salt' or 'striving for a less gag-inducing texture' haven't played out because this food is about sustinence, not a pleasant dining experience.
The other word in need of clarification is staple. In the States, I would consider a chicken breast a staple food for me, as I tended to eat about one per week on a fairly regular basis. Maybe same with sliced bread and (at a certain period of my development) vodka sodas. In the villages here, however, couscous isn't a favorite meal or the stereotypical food; it IS food. Like, the native language word for food is THE SAME as for couscous, with no distinction needed. Midday and nighttime meals nearly always involve huge piles of couscous (unless one is upper class and can afford piles of rice or potatoes sometimes) with an accompanying sauce.
Thankfully for some, variety is possible in the sauce (though unfortunately for others, it's not universally affordable). Most involve a particular leaf from a tree or bush plant, salt, maybe some dried fish (reliably 70% bones and heads), MSG cubes, and 'gumbo' (also misleading), which creates a sauce with the precise consistency and temperature of snot, down to the stringy, globby details. To eat, you pick up a glob of couscous, depress it a little and then dip it in the communal trough of sauce, virtually slinging it onto the mush and into your mouth in a gesture most people here have done daily their whole lives.
I'm writing this pretty frankly and perhaps a little unfairly not because this is the way I currently view dinner at my neighbors' houses, or because I'm looking to score some cheap sympathy, but because this is how I imagine a Western 'outsider' would describe them. If you were visiting me and eating with me at someone's house, this account is undoubtably what you would come away with.
That said, don't worry; it isn't really all that bad. I'm pretty used to the couscous and gumbo 1-2 punch, and sometimes enjoy it when it's well done and I'm hungry. Also, this is just the most common meal, there are also leaf sauces made with peanut paste, beef bits and tomato paste that occasionally transcend the mediocre...and at MY house, I can make them with rice.
Now, don't everyone rush out to buy there plane tickets to Bibemi at once; I'm pretty sure there's only 1 plane coming here this month, and the soccer team's already booked most of it.
On the other hand, since cultural traditions and the realities of the desert dictate an emphasis on quantity, availability and food that makes you feel fullest, the meals prepared from these fresh ingredients is extremely hit-or-miss. Take the basic staple, couscous. First, a few words about terminology. The French is couscous, but this isn't your mother's couscous (or your friend Susanne's). It's comprised of whatever carb or starch you have a surplus of (normally corn or millet) ground into a powder and mixed with boiling water, forming a thick, chunky paste that tastes like gritty, well, grit. Revolutionary concepts like 'adding salt' or 'striving for a less gag-inducing texture' haven't played out because this food is about sustinence, not a pleasant dining experience.
The other word in need of clarification is staple. In the States, I would consider a chicken breast a staple food for me, as I tended to eat about one per week on a fairly regular basis. Maybe same with sliced bread and (at a certain period of my development) vodka sodas. In the villages here, however, couscous isn't a favorite meal or the stereotypical food; it IS food. Like, the native language word for food is THE SAME as for couscous, with no distinction needed. Midday and nighttime meals nearly always involve huge piles of couscous (unless one is upper class and can afford piles of rice or potatoes sometimes) with an accompanying sauce.
Thankfully for some, variety is possible in the sauce (though unfortunately for others, it's not universally affordable). Most involve a particular leaf from a tree or bush plant, salt, maybe some dried fish (reliably 70% bones and heads), MSG cubes, and 'gumbo' (also misleading), which creates a sauce with the precise consistency and temperature of snot, down to the stringy, globby details. To eat, you pick up a glob of couscous, depress it a little and then dip it in the communal trough of sauce, virtually slinging it onto the mush and into your mouth in a gesture most people here have done daily their whole lives.
I'm writing this pretty frankly and perhaps a little unfairly not because this is the way I currently view dinner at my neighbors' houses, or because I'm looking to score some cheap sympathy, but because this is how I imagine a Western 'outsider' would describe them. If you were visiting me and eating with me at someone's house, this account is undoubtably what you would come away with.
That said, don't worry; it isn't really all that bad. I'm pretty used to the couscous and gumbo 1-2 punch, and sometimes enjoy it when it's well done and I'm hungry. Also, this is just the most common meal, there are also leaf sauces made with peanut paste, beef bits and tomato paste that occasionally transcend the mediocre...and at MY house, I can make them with rice.
Now, don't everyone rush out to buy there plane tickets to Bibemi at once; I'm pretty sure there's only 1 plane coming here this month, and the soccer team's already booked most of it.
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