What I’ve Been Eating

If you know me you know I like to cook. Back in the states I cook anything my mother taught me and then some. I like taking what I happen to have around and come up with something great to eat. Obviously, the difference here is that I am limited to what I can buy. The plus side to cooking in a unfamiliar place the availability of new and interesting ingredients. While I’ve been here I’ve started a garden (nothing is edible yet), sprouted beans to eat, and learned to butcher my own meat (this is a rare but great occasion). Although I am living in Lesotho on a strict budget I am learning to create my own meals that often end up awesome. My friend Andre just leant me a book by Anthony Bourdain called A Cook’s Tour. The book is about him traveling around the world in search of the perfect meal. Here’s an excerpt talking about why the French and Italians have such great cooking: “Few sane persons enjoy French pop music – or even the French much – but they know what to do with every scrap of hoof, snout, entrail, and skin, every bit of vegetable trimming, fish head, and bone. Because they grew up with that all-important dictum. Use Everything! (And use it we.) Why is that? Why them and not us? The answer is, in many ways, to be found in Vietnam, Portugal Mexico, Morocco – because they had to.” Sometimes I sit down to dinner and wonder to myself what this crazy concoction is that I have to put down my throat but often I find myself more than satisfied with my creations.

Not everything is completely out there. For instance I still have a variety of breakfasts available to me which are all normal. Eggs are readily available and keep for a long time unrefrigerated (who knew?). I bake my own bread and make Texas toast or toast it in my oven. Corn meal made into porridge tastes just like grits. I can make hash browns, French toast, and pancakes. If I bring back cheese from another town I can even make omelets.

I’ll also have a hot cup of tea or coffee in the morning also. I never packed a way to make real coffee so I’ve been stuck with instant. I hated it at first but I’m starting to get used to the empty taste. I usually use powdered milk also since again milk goes bad quickly without a fridge. A plus side of being in Lesotho is the large Indian population which brought with them their amazing and affordable supply of spices. I have all the ingredients to make fresh chai whenever I want. I use the powdered milk in this also but it really great.

Sometimes I have just improvised when I was craving a particular dish. I’ve made breadcrumbs from bread that was on its way out and I’ve made pasta from flour and water when I ran out. One day I was wishing I could just order some Chinese food. It’s such an amazing service to be able to pick up a phone and have someone bring you a steaming brown bag of food but turns out we don’t have that in Berea. Now I can make some pretty awesome fried rice (ask anyone) but I wanted some gyoza. Those little pot stickers fried, dipped in soy sauce, and served with rice. From making my own pasta I had an idea about what do for the pastry part. I rolled out some pretty generous sized circles and set them aside. For the filling I had cabbage garlic, ginger, carrot (for nutrition?), but for the meat I was stuck. Meat isn’t easy to get here. I decided to throw in this stuff called ‘soya mince’. It’s a ground meat substitute, made from soy beans, and sold dry in boxes. Normally its served as slop on starch. I had some open because I tried it one night to find my dinner was depressing me. So I threw that into the mix and stuffed the dough. I fried half and steamed the other half. I’d infused some red pepper and star anise into some sesame oil I had for the soy sauce. Bought myself a cold beer from the village- great meal.

One of the best meals I had was one weekend I went to a friend’s BBQ. This gets bloody. He starts off by whipping some fish out, fresh from the river. He throws that on the fire with lemon juice, some orange slices and various seasonings. I had been promised a slaughtering and as we were waiting for the fish to sizzle a whistle informs us that our brai (BBQ) meat was walking into the gate. When you think sheep you might a think fluffy, white, frolicking thing but rest assured this one wasn’t cute. It was a castrated male which is supposedly the best for eating. It had horns, it was fat, and as it baa baaed it had the potential to grow on you as any animal might. For those of us present it definitely had greater potential as a tasty meal. I’d killed a chicken in training but that was a lot smaller. I took a knife as three other men held down dinner.

WARNING THE NEXT PARAGRAPHS DESCRIBES KILLING AND SKINNING

I started trying to cut its neck but the knife was as dull as could be and I wasn’t making any progress. I was advised to just stab it, which I did. Thick, warm, dark red blood started oozing out onto the white wool. Guess how I know it was thick and warm. I really felt like I was sacrificing something. Maybe we should have had more ceremony. I thought I was done and we would let it bleed out but they told me to keep cutting through the spine. So there I was shoving this dull blade between vertebrae trying to detach the whole head when I notice the horrible noise. You might have an idea what the scream of an innocent lamb might sound like but it wasn’t like that and in a way it was worse because it was more real. It was trying to breathe and the air was being gurgled in the whole in its throat. It was soon over and although it’s kind of gross to look back on its easy to get over. Everything is used.

To begin preparing a slaughtered sheep you skin it. A few cuts in the right place, and the skin is pulled right off the carcass leaving the pelt in a single piece that can be made into whatever you can think of. The guts are in this sack like thing which is cut open carefully. If the gall bladder is ruptured the meat will taste bitter. With the gall bladder thrown to the dogs the rest of the organs are removed separated and cleaned. The cool thing about a slaughter is the social role everyone plays. Men and women work in groups. The guys work around the carcass skinning and ripping out organs and the women clean the intestines and other organs preparing them to be cooked. I think there are also certain parts reserved for either sex.

Don’t forget the point of this whole thing is to feast. The livers are sautéed with some onions and salt. Not many spices are used for any of the cooking but everything has its own flavor. When the livers are cooked through you just grab a piece and eat. It’s actually pretty good. Head is thrown on the fire and the brain is cooked later. Other organs are boiled down to a stew. I’m pretty sure you can even thicken the stew with fresh blood but we hadn’t collected any. The heart is kind of chewy but really tasty. I think I like that the best. Certain parts go to certain people based on age and social role. I tried everything thereby demonstrating that I am a full man. Normally this is done over two days but we ate the innards for lunch then moved on to the meat for dinner. The meat is butchered right next to the fire into whatever piece you want. I took an entire lamb leg to my mouth and felt like a king. It really doesn’t get much better than that.