I have my thoughtful husband to thank for helping to ease the transition into a starchy, heavy diet. Remembering the days of wishing for anything but the American cafeteria, the first time he came home with groceries, he found things that we had in the U.S. He brought butter for me (instead of the usual margarine for a population without many refrigerators.) He makes yogurt almost every day, which eases digestion and helps with constipation.
When I was sick and couldn't stand the sight of tô, he brought fresh fruit: bananas, avocados, oranges, mango juice, and special apples (special because they are imported.) When we were guests in Tantie's home and, sick for the second time, I loathed more than five bites of the perpetual rice, he brought delicious chicken.
Since then, chicken has been our special "eat out" meal. That and porc-au-fou are pretty much the only prepared foods we buy. You never know how long street food has been kept - unrefrigerated - or how they washed and made it.
Here, the two of us can eat one entire chicken.... Huh? They look normal with their feathers fluffed out, scratching on the dirt roads, running away from speeding motorcycles with their chicks. They get no "chicken food" besides their bugs and food scraps. In Bobo Dioulasso, the family saved the chaff from grinding corn to feed the chickens. Otherwise, they're on their own.
Now that I'm cooking, rather than relying on the graciousness of hosts and family, I'm working on perfecting the peanut butter sauce that Adama taught me to make. Peanut Butter Sauce, Sauce de Arachid, or Tiga-Diga Ng (in Djoula) was my first taste of African cooking from the chef Adama in Goshen.
We often eat fish. Potato and plantain fries are on the menu. Spaghetti is a break from that perpetual rice, but it takes trial and error to figure out how much water to add since it's usually cooked in the sauce. There is no such thing as measuring ingredients. Except for "potasse." That is put in by the cap-full whenever cooking with tomatoes.
I'm not certain what "potasse" is, and I'm spelling phonetically since it comes in unlabeled bags. Its purpose is to take the sourness out of sauce (I didn't know tomatoes were sour.) Is sounds like potassium, and Adama mentioned that it might be related to sodium bicarbonate. He said it sometimes fizzles/bubbles when adding it to sauce, as does baking soda when added to vinegar. That makes sense if it's neutralizing acid.
Here's a picture of potasse... the bag it comes in, some of the rock-like substance in my hand, and some mixed up in water the way we add it to sauce.
The strangest new spice I've had goes by the name "Sumbala." Adama cooked a sauce with fish and sumbala during our week in Bobo. Sumbala grows in pods on a tree. It is sold in large balls, which consist of many grains of sumbala. The balls are pounded with salt, and the ground spice is added to the sauce in great quantities. Most distinctly, sumbala smells. Strongly. The bus company makes sure no passengers bring it on board, and it's important to brush teeth after eating it.
I was just telling my mother that some of the difficulty in learning to cook here doesn't lie in new ingredients. Since settling into our own place, I've had the intimidating experience of providing African hospitality. At least, it's intimidating to a novice cooking for guys who have learned to cook for themselves.
The challenge is posed not only making a tasty sauce, but in making the right amount. There should be enough for whoever might come. And I must learn what can keep overnight, unrefrigerated. And what will go bad. My nutritionist sister was disgusted when I told her we even do this with meat!
While learning to cook, I've learned to pray. That is the most wonderful thing that food or country or learning has brought to me. Now I seek it out. Jesus is powerful and - even when the taste or the texture isn't quite right - I want everything I cook to bring peace and healing to those who eat it. Practice makes perfect and prayer makes peace. Yum. When will I greet a day with enough practice and enough prayer?
Before we left Bobo, Adama's mother taught me how to make couscous with millet flour. It is delicious mixed with yogurt to make what we call "degae." (Spelling guessing again.) Here's some millet couscous, ready to be steamed:
The last thing I'll show you for now is tô. It could be considered the staple "bread" of this culture. More explanation is given in the description of these two videos I took of Adama's mother preparing
tô. I have yet to make this, although I hear it is simple!
Happy eating to all of you! Enjoy things you know about while you've got them in your mouth and your stomach.
I so remember living in Japan and trying to adjust to the mystery food. I was often shocked to realize what I had eaten after I had already eaten it. And yes we grew sick of rice.
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