wu 27 April

Good Day All,

 

I am asked by many of the people here what my favorite American food is. Since the local cuisine here has about as much variety as Roseanne Barr's personality, it is no wonder people are interested. I guess I never really thought about it until the things I am used to are not available. I suppose I take a lot of things for granted. To give you an example, last fall I was pouring myself a glass of almost chilled Coke and I offered some to our day guard. Some people like warm pop but not me. I tossed in a couple ice cubes for him and then myself. We started chatting and it was obvious something was wrong. He kept staring at the glass and didn't know what to do. The culture here does not allow a person to insult their employer and he was certainly in a bind. I asked him what was wrong and he stuttered a little and then with an awkward grin and wide eyes, finally asked what in the world I just put in his glass. After explaining to him that it's just frozen water and we put it in warm drinks to make them cold, he decided to try it. I never gave a thought to the chance that this guy growing up in a village in the NWest with no electricity had never seen ice before. He was ok with it but hasn't asked for ice since.

The perception here is that all Americans have a giant feast anytime they want with all kinds of different foods. Not hard to believe if any of them have seen any American movies or television. We have introduced many of our Cameroonian friends to American dishes. We had Pizza and Coke (already chilled) on Easter Sunday with a group of friends. We (Betsy) made a pan of lasagna for the couple that runs a little store behind our house not long ago. Our strange cuisine raises many eyebrows among our new friends but they have been very receptive.

On the other hand, being the adventurous and daring souls we are, have made a real effort to try many of the local dishes. The two staples here are fufu corn and jama jama. The fufu is a ground up conglomeration of corn, cocoyams and spice of indeterminate origin. It is certainly edible and, contrary to most dishes, does not fill the room with a smell that would gag a starving hyena. The jama jama looks like a spinach cole slaw salad gone bad soaked in kerosene. I suppose my distrust of these alien looking foods is not far from what our friends feel when we invite them over for tacos.

What spurred on this idea of writing about food and our experiences thereof was a brief moment of enlightenment I had the other night. I do not get them often but when I do it seems like I should do something about it. So there I was in the kitchen taking off my shoes after a long day of teaching and working on various afternoon projects. Betsy had gone home right after school since she was fighting off a cold and wasn't feeling well. I had to extract some irons from the fire at RFIS so my arrival was not until a few hours later. Usually, by this time, she has a plan for dinner and it is in full swing. I hoped for the best when I came through the door but knowing how she felt before, I knew my chances of her having something ready were slim. I sought her out to see how she was. The first red flag was the box of Kleenex next to the pillow on the bed. The second was the airborne pillow narrowly missing my head when I turned on the light. It was then that I decided just to take matters into my own hands and perpetuate dinner for myself. My extensive bachelor career sharpened my cooking skills to a fine point so all I had to do is go back in time and retrieve my former flair. I would just open the cupboard and dinner would magically appear before my eyes. I shut the cupboard door, focused my concentration and tried again. Nothing. How does she do it? She takes one look and instantly a dinner appears. She works about cutting and dicing and frying and it seems so effortless. My wife is certainly blessed. Now, my grandmother was the World Champion Cook. She lived in a modest little house about 40 miles or so south of our home place. We would stop in there often on Sundays and visit. After greetings and hugs we would race into the living room to watch Star Trek (Grandma got channel 9 from the Twin Cities) and Grandma would disappear into the kitchen. 30 minutes later she had a 10 course hot meal on the table. She was amazing. One year she put on a thanksgiving dinner for us and all our cousins. There were at least 30 of us there. She had 3 turkeys, 20 pies, 30 pounds of masked potatoes and all the rest. She did it all with only one stove and one refrigerator. There are still a whole set of Star Trek episodes that I have never seen the ending of.

I knew I had to use my imagination so I came up with a new plan. The fridge! Surely there would be a dinner in there waiting for me. Aha! At this point I became desperate. I would have to break out the heavy artillery. I picked up the pillow and in the darkness I softly asked Betsy what I could make for myself. So much for the heavy artillery. I don't imagine "go pour yourself a nice tall glass of get out of here" qualifies as dinner. I wandered back into the kitchen and decided to try again and hoped that by some miracle I would be spared from the pangs of starvation. I opened the cupboard and then it happened. I had been delivered. There was dinner staring me right in the face. Since Betsy was not eating, I thought best to stay out of range so I was only making enough for myself. I somehow had regained the strength of cooking I had lost upon sharing vows with my beautiful bride almost 2 years ago. I was feeling good and the world seemed to click right back into balance. I scooted my chair up to the table satisfied with what I done. I knew I still had it. I was foolish to think that my skills had diminished to that point. After I finished my tuna sandwiches and can of corn I breezed through the dishes and wiped off the counters. After all, what more can a thoughtful husband do?

 

Take Care and God Bless

 

Brian & Betsy