le 2 mars 2011
Food for thought
I’m sure I’ve mentioned food before, but I thought I’d dedicate an entry to food. I feel like this experience in Deslandes and Verrettes is more true to what most people eat, than what I ate in Port au Prince at Grassroots. I am deeply appreciative of all of the wonderful cooks who have prepared meals for me.
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| Joanne, the cook at Grassroots United, cooking over a wood fire (unusual- most people use coal for cooking). |
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| Sano, preparing a killer sauce for rice. |
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| Mischla, part of the family next door to me, preparing her family's meal. |
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| Benitta, proudly displaying the lobsters we were given in exchange for helping a neighbour. |
We are in such a lush area- tonight’s dinner included freshly made papaya juice! We had fried potatoes, picklise (shredded cabbage, carrot, jalapeno, onion, lime juice & oil), some kind of breaded & fried sea critter, rice & pea sauce, and lobster with okra in a delicious tomato based sauce.
Tonight is the first night in a long while we haven’t had fried plantain- that is a common dinner ingredient. Rice seems to be common for dinner as well- so, although everything is on the table when we arrive, you start with the picklise & fried plantain, or potatoes, or whatever the fried thing is. Then, from there, onto the rice, and whatever sauce accompanies it- sometimes a pea sauce, other times, a red sauce (always very tasty) with tiny portions of meat.
Breakfast is a delight- fresh omelettes with chives, bread, and peanut butter (they grow a lot of peanuts here, so I’m guessing they make their own peanut butter), chopped fresh papaya, or mango, coffee (and I’m accustomed to drinking half a cup- there is only so much made every day), and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. It’s amazing how much sugar my current Haitian clan put into the grapefruit juice- I drink it straight up. They also put a ton of sugar into their coffee, and St. Geste even put sugar into the papaya juice tonight- go figure! I suppose lots of people have a sweet tooth here- what with sugar cane growing all around you, and at recess, there is a woman sitting there every day with a bowl of candy for kids to buy. Weird that candy might be the first thing that some of them eat for the day- nevermind about cavities and such!
Lunch seems to vary between either a bouillie (like a soup- with carrots, potatoes, other weird root vegetables, and lako lako), and mayi (boiled corn with lako, tomato sauce). I had been thinking that it would be nice to have bread with the bouillie, and lo and behold! today, there was bread served with the soup.
This beats the Port au Prince spaghetti breakfast with hotdogs and salted fish, and the breaded deep fried sandwiches with hotdogs, but a long shot. We’re quite lucky to be in an area with such an abundance of fresh food. I’m still not quite sure how most people are surviving; I do know that people share, but I’ve also seen people abruptly turn people away who are hungry, so I’m still not really sure how it works.
The stoves and cooking centres really amaze me. Most everyone here cooks with charcoal- I have yet to see someone using wood. Yesterday’s entry showed the packed burn to make charcoal, and now I wanted to share some of my favourite cooking photos. As it turns out, people of all ages cook, as I saw when Da was making dinner for her family. From a very young age, kids are expected to pitch in with chores- and really, I mean a very, very young age. Benitta told me that they go through a bag of coal in about 4 or 5 days- the bags are feed bags, about 4’ tall, and 2.5’ in diameter or so- in any case, I was surprised how quickly they use it, but it is used for every meal, after all.
Tonight is the first night in a long while we haven’t had fried plantain- that is a common dinner ingredient. Rice seems to be common for dinner as well- so, although everything is on the table when we arrive, you start with the picklise & fried plantain, or potatoes, or whatever the fried thing is. Then, from there, onto the rice, and whatever sauce accompanies it- sometimes a pea sauce, other times, a red sauce (always very tasty) with tiny portions of meat.
Breakfast is a delight- fresh omelettes with chives, bread, and peanut butter (they grow a lot of peanuts here, so I’m guessing they make their own peanut butter), chopped fresh papaya, or mango, coffee (and I’m accustomed to drinking half a cup- there is only so much made every day), and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. It’s amazing how much sugar my current Haitian clan put into the grapefruit juice- I drink it straight up. They also put a ton of sugar into their coffee, and St. Geste even put sugar into the papaya juice tonight- go figure! I suppose lots of people have a sweet tooth here- what with sugar cane growing all around you, and at recess, there is a woman sitting there every day with a bowl of candy for kids to buy. Weird that candy might be the first thing that some of them eat for the day- nevermind about cavities and such!
Lunch seems to vary between either a bouillie (like a soup- with carrots, potatoes, other weird root vegetables, and lako lako), and mayi (boiled corn with lako, tomato sauce). I had been thinking that it would be nice to have bread with the bouillie, and lo and behold! today, there was bread served with the soup.
This beats the Port au Prince spaghetti breakfast with hotdogs and salted fish, and the breaded deep fried sandwiches with hotdogs, but a long shot. We’re quite lucky to be in an area with such an abundance of fresh food. I’m still not quite sure how most people are surviving; I do know that people share, but I’ve also seen people abruptly turn people away who are hungry, so I’m still not really sure how it works.
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| This is a glorious meal that Benitta prepared for Jean Baptiste's birthday. |
The stoves and cooking centres really amaze me. Most everyone here cooks with charcoal- I have yet to see someone using wood. Yesterday’s entry showed the packed burn to make charcoal, and now I wanted to share some of my favourite cooking photos. As it turns out, people of all ages cook, as I saw when Da was making dinner for her family. From a very young age, kids are expected to pitch in with chores- and really, I mean a very, very young age. Benitta told me that they go through a bag of coal in about 4 or 5 days- the bags are feed bags, about 4’ tall, and 2.5’ in diameter or so- in any case, I was surprised how quickly they use it, but it is used for every meal, after all.
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| Different heights |
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| A triple burner |
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| Sano uses this little guy for quick heats for deep frying. This is the same type of coal bucket that the guys brought with hot coals on a truck to come solder the eavestroughing on the straw house in PaP. |
Since writing this post, I have hung out with both Sano and Benitta as they were preparing meals, and they gave me some prep jobs. I got to ‘pese bananes’- that is to squish the plantain between the special tiny wooden boards (they look like miniature cutting boards!). And Sano prepared a most special meal for me Saturday night: fried plantain, potatoes, goat, and then a rice dish with an extremely flavourful sauce.
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| He pierced a green pepper with cloves, and set that in the sauce for extra flavour...miam, miam! |
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| Mmmmm, fried goodness! |
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