Food

This blog may inadvertently have conveyed the impression that food only instigates diarrhea, and that would be a tragic miscommunication. Bacteria cause diarrhea, not food. Remember that.

I have had memorable meals in my life, some simple and some grand: a blowfish we caught and cooked off Cape Cod when I was a kid comes to mind, some wine and bread and cheese with my mom when I was a teenager, a vegetable tagine cooked in the sand at Casablanca 28 years ago, a Russian meal with a lot of frozen vodka in North Carolina in 1984, a Japanese meal with lots of hot sake in Lima, Peru a year earlier, a fondue I had in Switzerland in 1990 (booze again), a birthday meal Polly cooked me once on the hottest day of the year in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sushi fests at my sister’s house…the circumstances and the people and the food and sometimes the occasion conspired to elevate the experience beyond simply “dinner”.

Nassir making sahara bread

The meal Nassir and friends cooked us in the desert at La Source in Algeria, and the farewell dinner Lakhdar and Talla cooked in the desert outside Tamanrasset may well join the list, and both of them centered on bread. Nassir made real Sahara bread: balls of dough kneaded and massaged into flat patties and fried on a skillet with plenty of oil brushed on. It came with roasted mutton and a big salad, and the night was clear and not quite as late as usual, and I understood more than a little of the conversation, and out of all of the late night, meat roasting, guy-a-thons, this one sticks in my mind. That bread was unforgettable.

Lakhdar spent an incredibly long time stirring a bowl of dough that was then poured on a bed of hot sand and embers and covered with hot embers. The resultant flat loaf was then scraped of cinder, broken into little bits, and mixed into a bowl of ingredients I do not remember (I’m hoping Lakhdar will help me out here with some comments). This is a traditional meal with a name I also neglected to write down (help me, someone!). Everyone ate out of the common bowl, with Talla pulling pieces of mutton off the bone and tossing it into each person’s quadrant: a ritual I rather liked.

Tea

I must mention tea, and I’m not talking Lipton though that is exactly what got me through some hot afternoons in Benin. In Algeria especially, tea is ritual: a soothing and relaxing and rather lengthy endeavor requiring several pots and glasses and a small brazier. A small fire is made in the brazier to yield coals that boil water in a copper pot. Kasem Chermel at In Salah actually did this in a closed room, apparently oblivious to the fumes.

Tea pots

Tea leaves are inserted into the pot in a big bundle that prevents the leaves from exiting the pot with the water. The water is poured into a glass containing quite a bit of sugar. The pour is done with pride, the pot held as high as the pourer dares and the arc of the water as long as possible so that it feels like a miracle that it all reaches the glass. The tea is poured back into the pot. This is done many times, until the sugar is completely dissolved, there is a stiff froth on the tea in the glass and the host tastes and judges it done. Small glasses half filled with tea are handed to all. The whole ritual in its most relaxed form is repeated three times: once to taste the bitterness of the tea leaves, once to taste the sweetness of the sugar and once to appreciate the froth on top.

Ahmed told me that for him the ritual is a soothing addiction, something I thought not too different from my own love affair with coffeehouses and cappucinos.

Dutch cows grabbing a tan

Dairy products were a surprise. The countries I visited do not have well-developed dairy industries and have relied for a long time on imported powdered milk. Why they would have wanted this product at all if it wasn’t indigenous is a topic well-covered in World Hunger mentioned earlier. In any case, Kherfi Freres in Guererra were pretty cutting edge with their Dutch cows in the desert and their effort to create a dairy industry. Mohamed in Kairouan, Tunisia treated me to goat milk/cheese which I found slightly sour, slightly sweet, and fairly pleasant. Processed foods were not uncommon in Tunisia, including cheeses much like Dutch Gouda. I saw processed cheese spread in 24 triangle rounds in Niger and found it handy to have later when all I could find was bread. Benin seems largely dairy free, except in the cities where you find “Fan Milk”. I am hopelessly addicted to the semi-frozen bags of Fan Milk sweetened yoghurt sold by young guys out of freezer boxes often mounted on bikes and announced with large bulbed horns.

Manioc is a staple in Benin, much as yucca is a staple in Peru: you find huge stacks of this very large root by the roadside wherever you go. It is soaked and then boiled, and accompanied it seems with a sauce made of onions, tomatoes, chili peppers and oil. I had my best day of biking when I ate manioc for breakfast and I truly believe it is related. I had a bit of a Yucca fries addiction in Peru but I did not see Manioc fries here in Benin…could be a whole new culinary direction for them here.

Salad

Vegetables in general tended to cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes and onions...the diversity was not particularly impressive. The massive importation of exotic and out of season foodstuffs common in the United States and Europe wasn't apparent in the places I visited. Tunisia had the most variety, and with a Mediterranean climate at the coast was in a position to grow it.

Vegetable display

Dessert was not a highly prized concept anywhere I went, but the oranges in Tunisia and Algeria were incredible and the pineapple and small mango were delicious in Benin. Dates were common and became a high-energy staple for me when I was biking. I only found pineapple in the cities of Benin. I have never liked papaya, but there were afternoons where they tasted fantastic, and these were more ubiquitous (look that word up, Tommy).

Sheep at Kherfi Freres

Meat…well, there’s nothing quite like a steak. Slaughtering a sheep and roasting it is quite an event in Algeria, but I found it very fatty and irritatingly filled with indigestibles like cartilage. I know the meat itself is actually delicious, so I’ve been spoiled by the highly refined butchering done in the Etats-Unis. I promised myself I wouldn’t eat chicken but did anyway: they were not oven-stuffer-roasters but tasted just fine. I was confronted with Highly Suspicious Looking Fish served by Orou Adamou and prepared by his mom in Beroubouay, Benin, forced myself to dig in and found that pretty good as well.

Coca Cola

Liquor is available in Tunisia and uncommon in Algeria. I drank quite a bit of Niger beer (giraffe on the brown or green bottles), and found every conceivable brand of real and knock-off hard liquor here in Benin. Coca-Cola is common in Benin but nowhere else. I’m told it will kill diarrhea bugs: another pesticide dumped on the third world. It is cheaper than bottled mineral water.

Dosso, Niger