Food Fun

I’ve noticed I tend to write about food a lot.  Maybe this is because I eat pretty much the same thing each day with my only variety coming from whether my rice was covered in tomato sauce or peanut sauce.  And maybe it also stems from missing the tastes of home and the refreshing satisfaction of a cold glass of milk.  Fun fact: I used to drink at least 3 cups of milk a day…I have yet to even SEE real milk (as opposed to powdered milk) in Africa yet, more or less actually drink even a tablespoon of real milk.  I’ve basically quit milk cold-turkey, as if I were a smoker and drinking milk was the bad habit I needed to get rid of.  I’m just praying I don’t end up becoming lactose intolerant.  That would be sad.   Which reminds me, I haven’t eaten my daily yogurt (the only dairy available in Burkina) yet today.  Anyways, I think my frequent texts concerning food are also because food happens to be an easy topic to write about.  Explaining the nuances of a culture’s values and what certain physical gestures or facial expressions mean compared to what they represent in America is difficult.  But explaining food is considerably less complex.  And it’s also probably relatively easy for those of you back in America – who, no matter how hard you try, will never fully comprehend what I’m experiencing – to understand and relate to.

So here’s some more on my experiences with food…

Peanut butter is a staple food/ingredient found in almost every American’s kitchen.  It’s eaten alone right out of the jar; on bread, celery, and apples; with chocolate; in cookies, bars, and ice cream.  Pretty much anything you can think of (even pizza and tacos) has been eaten with peanut butter by at least one American before, if not by hundreds of people.  Fortunately for us Americans currently in Burkina, peanuts are plentiful.  Which means there’s also peanut butter.  In its most natural and simple state of existence.  It’s not at all like Skippy or Jiff, with the extra salt or sugar or honey mixed in, and it’s not even all that similar to the natural, organic stuff we have in America either.  But it’s close.  Close enough, anyways.  The crushed up dark brown peanut sauce here has been a life-saver and a comfort food.  We’ll eat it on anything.  Typically, the Burkinabe only add it to a watery sauce accompanied by onions and chunks of fat/meat which is served over rice or couscous.  But we put it on our dry bread, eat it with bananas, smother it between rock-hard cookie/biscuit/cake-like things, and more.  Some of the guys have even begun mixing it into their yogurt with crushed up cookies and a spoonful of chocolate powder in hopes of recreating the yumminess of a Dairy Queen blizzard.  The Burkinabe think we’re weird and disgusting for all the different ways they’ve seen us eat peanut butter.  But they’ve started to get used to it and have stopped giving us puzzled looks when we stop at their table in the marche and ask to buy both a baggie of peanut butter and a loaf of bread, along with a banana.   Although I have yet to make myself a peanut butter & banana sandwich (a popular lunch-time creation among most the stagiaires, and for some people in America as well), I do enjoy peanut butter on bread, and peanut butter on bananas.  Just not all together.  But I’m sure that day will come.  It’s not uncommon for me to eat 3 or 4 bananas dipped in peanut butter for my lunch.  Or for breakfast.  Or with my supper.  Or for each meal of the day.

This past week, I had bought a bunch of bananas on my way home after class.  Like 8 bananas, to be exact.  I planned to eat two with my supper (to supplement the rice/noodles I was sure to be served), save two for my breakfast the next morning, and give the other four to my family as a “gift.”  I don’t see them eat fruits/vegetables very often, unless I bring it home for them.  After they thanked me for the gift of bananas, I sat down in my chair and took my peanut butter out of my backpack.  I told them I really enjoyed eating my bananas with peanut and that it tastes great.  My mom and Valerie gave me a weird look, but said they would like to try it and see whether or not I was correct in it tasting good.  They each spread a bit of peanut butter on their banana and took a little bite.  Instantly, their faces lit up and they said, “Wow, this is good!” and proceeded to smother the rest of the bananas in peanut butter.  They even gave little bites to baby Cecilia, who also gobbled it right up.  I then informed them that “pâte arachide” was full of protein and other healthy nutrients, and so it was a good thing to eat on a regular basis and to help the kids grow. Now to convince them to try peanut butter on bread…and add a few more things to their white rice/noodle diet…like cabbage.

While this is a rough season for finding fresh fruits and vegetables – with this year in particular being more difficult than usual – the marche generally sports bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, eggplant, and cabbage on a regular basis.  That’s a lot of good stuff, whether it’s eaten raw or cooked in a soup.  Unfortunately, however, they do cost a bit more…though really, it’s not that expensive.  And sometimes there are even avocadoes, oranges, grapefruit, and apples.  (Right now there are no mangoes because mango season is finished, but normally mangoes are plentiful.)  Eating fresh veggies is not common here, but adding an onion or a few tomatoes to a sauce served over rice is a bit more typical.  Every now and then, there might even be a few cabbage leaves added to the sauce as well.  Unfortunately, any nutrients originally found in the veggies are completely lost though, as everything here is boiled for hours and cooked down to a liquid purée.  So I’ve been trying to encourage eating fresh foods, or at least not so thoroughly cooked veggies.

One night I brought home a head of cabbage, an onion, cucumber, and a few tomatoes and proceeded to make a salad, using mayonnaise and vinegar with a dash of salt as dressing.  They watched in awe as I sliced up the cucumber and diced the onion, surprised by the fact that it looked like I knew what I was doing when it came to cooking and was skilled with a knife.  I made a whole bowl full of salad with the intention of inviting my family to share it with me, but of course they wouldn’t touch it.  I ate my fill (there was no way I was gonna let those good veggies go to waste!), pretended to eat the noodles I was served, and then gave the rest of my food to my family.  I told them I was finished, but if they would like to eat it the salad, they should, because it wouldn’t keep overnight and I didn’t want it to go to waste.  They smiled politely and nodded, setting the bowl inside the house.  But I have no idea if they ever ate it or not, and if they did, whether or not they liked it.  I only had used about half of the head of cabbage, so I also gave that to my host mom and asked her if she could prepare it in a sauce for tomorrow’s supper.

I was so excited the next evening to see that she did cook the cabbage for me.  I savored every bite of my boiled cabbage that had an onion/tomato sauce over it, almost reminiscent to a stew, sans the meat, potatoes, and carrots.  Several times, I said something along the lines of cabbage being my favorite food (it’s not. yup, I lied) and that I wouldn’t mind eating it every day, in order to get the point across that I REALLY like vegetables and would love it if my mom prepared this dish for me again.  Having bought the cabbage myself, I knew it wasn’t overly expensive and that my family could definitely afford to buy it with the food allowance they are given from the Peace Corps.  But even if they couldn’t, I have no problem buying my own vegetables and giving them to my mom to cook for me.  Whatever it takes to eat something other than blah carbs.  Although, strangely, I’ve also started to become indifferent to eating the same thing over and over: I’ve had benga (beans and rice) for lunch six days in a row now, including a couple nights for supper also.  In fact, it’s amazing how “happy” I find myself to see what my meals are each night.  “Oh man, rice with peanut sauce.  This is good stuff!  Just what I was hoping for.  I haven’t had rice since…lunch time.  And peanut sauce for…2 days now.”  And so, you can probably imagine then, how thankfully thrilled I am whenever I have the opportunity to eat something that’s not a blah carb…or even if it still is a blah carb, as long as it’s served with a vegetable-based sauce. 

Take the green leafy stuff my mom serves as a sauce to eat with tô, for example.  The first time I saw it, I was a little skeptical.  I saw them picking leaves that morning.  And now I was being served boiled leaves.  Great. Looks like I’ll be going to bed hungry again.  Before I permanently pushed aside the bowl of slimy green stuff, I decided to try a bite.  And you know what?  It wasn’t bad.  A bitter aftertaste.  But besides that, I found it to be extremely edible and quite satisfying.  I stirred a few tablespoons of salt into my pot of leaf-sauce to kill the bitterness, and voila!  Magic.  I ate the WHOLE pot, practically licking it clean.  I took a large scoop of tô out of the bowl that had been prepared for me, feeding it to the dog so that it looked like I had eaten the sauce with my tô, like I was supposed to.  No one here eats only sauce; it’s always rice or noodles or tô with a splash of sauce as an afterthought, not the other way around like I had done.  When I gave my dishes to my host family, I made sure to tell them how much I enjoyed the sauce.  I also was certain to point out that although I had eaten every last drop of the sauce, I was very full and did not need any more to eat. 

I find it ironic that within the past few weeks, as I’ve been bringing home random fruits and vegetables and telling my family that I REALLY enjoy certain foods, they’ve also become more accommodating to me and have really made a strong effort to vary my food a bit more.  For example, after over 2 months straight of dry bread every morning for breakfast and nothing else with it --no butter.  no jelly.  nothing. – I was finally served something else: an omelet sandwich.  Granted it was still dry bread, but now it had an “omelet” shoved inside it.  And granted the omelet was mainly oil and onions, mixed in with maybe two small eggs.  Maybe.  It really was mainly just oil and onions, very little egg.  But nonetheless, it was something different.  My host dad said to me, “It’s not good for you to eat only bread.  We’ll try to find other food for you.”  I wasn’t sure if I should say “Yes, that’s great,” or “No thanks, it’s not necessary, the bread is fine” so I just nodded and gave them my "I'm confused and don't understand what you're saying" look.  Since then, I’ve now had a deep-fried onion/egg sandwich about once a week (usually on Sundays), along with a hot rice porridge/pudding once, which I added some sugar to and a sprinkle of the cinnamon sent to me from America.  Good stuff.  My mom has also given me my favorite green-leaf sauce 3 times since my first encounter with it, and now makes sure to put about half a head of cabbage in my peanut-sauce that is served over rice.  I’ve even had watermelon once, and sweet corn twice.  Well, not exactly sweet corn like in America.  But corn that’s on a cob nonetheless.  It’s cooked over/on hot coals until it’s almost all black in order to soften the kernels, otherwise the kernels are rather hard.  I’m pretty sure the corn that people eat here is actually what we Americans feed our animals.  Oh well, it’s edible.  Even without butter or salt on it.