Where There Is No Kitchen

A great many books and articles are written with similar titles; Where there is no...road, hotel, toilet paper, doctor, dentist etc. but to my knowledge, the kitchen has been left out.  Which I find to be strange at best and a dissapointment at worst.  One of the favortie questions asked by friends and family is, "But what do you eat?!"

A typical reply is usually, "Whatever slows down long enough." Which isn't exactly true and probably warrents further consideration.  If you think about it, from an American perspective, it is a logical question.  There is no refrigeration, freezers, crisper drawers, tap water, or shelves and shelves of canned food.  Think about that next time you open the fridge, "There's nothing to eat!" I bet you that, unless you are a college student, in which case there very well may be nothing, I can make probably 4-5 decent meals out of "nothing".

So what do I eat.  Well thanks to the fact that I am not the first volunteer at my site, I came to a house with lots of great stuff left behind.  It's the little things that make all the difference, a few bags of pasta, some rice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey, powdered cream, spices galore, actual ketchup, and believe it or not, 3 packets of Kraft Ranch dressing which I am itching to use.  So, to all who came before and left little goodies along the way, I say thank you.

That being taken into account, all that is missing are the veggies, fruit and various forms of protein. Almost all of which must by bought in the boma.  What exactly does this entail?

Veggies: Eggplant, carrots, green peppers, onions, tomatos, mustard greens, chinese cabbage, green beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash. Currently I have to buy all these, everything in the garden is still under 3 inches tall.

Fruit: This catagory is extremly season dependent, Avocado and Guava season just ended (booooo!, I could eat those forever), Papayas are ripe, mangos are starting to flower now, pineapple in December-ish, Topito is starting (which I am looking forward to trying), Oranges and lemons are still going strong, bananas are a year round food and cheap

Protein: eggs (can be bought in the village sporadically and are a little more expensive), beans (still haven't tried, too long to cook on paraffin during a fuel shortage), soya 'meat' (not bad, not that great, cheap, easy), fish (easy to get, fresh, dried, canned, buy in the village, boma or open a packet of tuna from mommy!), chicken (haven't bought yet, can be bought frozen in boma), goat/beef (expensive and a little sketchy to be honest), peanut butter (I go through about a jar a week), last but not least at all is the protein powder sent from home

All right, now what? What is a typical day like?

Breakfast- usually this consists of bananas and peanut butter and a cup of tea with cream and sugar.  For the full effect, best eaten outdoors while watching the Sunbirds in the nearby trees. On Boma days it's oatmeal with a spoonful of peanut butter and Nutella, really good.  If I happen to plan things and have eggs left, I may have eggs and spam (thanks dad!).

Lunch- More often than not this is the protein powder mixed with some powdered milk.  Unless I am out and about, then lunch is whatever.  On boma days it is chicken, rice, and greens. If I am at a neighbors house it will be nsima and any one of the following, fish boiled or fried, gutted but eaten whole, beans, greens, maybe chicken if you are lucky.

Dinner- This is the most open to change.  For instance last night was mac'n'chese a la Malawi. For the Malawians, if you haven't eaten nsima you haven't eaten, for me if I haven't eaten a tomato I haven't eaten.  Veggies are for dinner! More often than not there is a tomato, and half a green pepper and half an onion in some form, these are usually the basis for dinner and it is built around them.  Usually they are sauteed and set aside to be mixed in with something later. 

The "something" usually goes one of 4 ways, eggplant, fish, soya, or eggs.  Eggplant is peeled, sliced, well salted and left to sit for about 20 minutes.  The resulting bitter liquid in the bottom of the bowl is poured off and the eggplant rinsed twice and lightly squeezed to remove excess liquid. Then they are fried lightly in olive oil.  Fish typically consists of pilchards, sardines, or tuna from home and is added to the veggies, really simple.  Soya is soaked in water for about 20 minutes then cooked until soft, add to veggies. Eggs will be boiled, scrambled, fried, whatever I feel like, and added to the veggies.

Seasoning here can make an entire meal.  Everything gets salt and pepper, regardless.  After that you are limited only by your creativity.  I am lucky, I have a really well stocked spice shelf and my rule is to use 3 different bottles each time.  Calfornia seasoning goes well on fish, basil goes great with anything, paprika and chili powder are good on pasta, and on and on.  You try some pretty wacky combinations here.  Flavor takes on a whole new meaning when you don't have any.

Food here is very simple, very basic.  Spices and flavor packets can make your world so much brighter.  Something you have made one hundred times before can be completely new if you just grab a different bottle.  Most of it is good, some of it doesn't work so well. For instance, too much oregano with the Mexican seasoning is a little weird.  But the good stuff sticks with you, like Mac'n Cheese a la Malawi;

boil macaroni noodles, drain, leaving a little water, add some powdered milk, kraft powdered cheese from a real box of mac' cheese, and a glob of a butter like substance known as 'Blue Band', mix well. To taste, season with salt, pepper, parmisan cheese (a God send!), parsley, basil, paprika, and/or chili powder. Once mixed to desired taste, add one packet of salmon, enjoy! Best if eaten by candle light, a headlamp, or moonlight, outside, and with a robust powdered drink mix, I recommend a raspberry/lemonade, vintage, of course (read as: mixed 2 days ago in a nalgene, left in the sun, and forgotten about).    

You will also notice there are no units of measurement.  Six months ago the prospect of cooking without a measuring cup would have made me resort to take-out.  Now I feel like it adds to the excitement.  The leading culinary thought here for cooking, rice, for instance, goes a little like this; add water to pot.  You don't really know how much you need but that ought to do it.  Add rice, again, you don't know how much will give you the proper ratio but that ought to do it. You know that probably won't cook up to very much, here's some more, eeh...little more....eeh, and there's some more for good measure.

Once this cooks up it will consist of roughly enough rice to have fed Atilla and his huns on their Westward conquest of Eurasia.  The left overs from that, probably would have gotten Hannable's elephants over the Alps and into Rome.  Had this happened, the fall of Rome would have come a good deal sooner and changed the course of history as we know it.  So as you can see there is great potential and a good deal of power to be had in cooking without measuring cups, I highly recommend it.

So there you have it.  Eating out...waaaayyy out.  It doesn't have to be fancy and if you can think a little before hand it is actually pretty easy to do.  So get up, throw out those measuring cups and just wing it America! You never know what you can make!