Yesterday morning Synett and I were working on a funding proposal when tea time came around. The office had enough avocados (brought in from Synett's yard) and there was tea, but bread and atchar needed to be purchased in order to have the expected full spread. We walked to the chips' stand where William Letsoalo scooped atchar (green mangos marinated in fish oil) into a cup we had brought and then headed over to the bakery to get the bread... fresh out of the oven! We walked through the door, greeted people as we passed, and headed for the bread rack... about 20 loaves, warm and sweatin' in their bags, had just been brought out. And there, at the very top of that rack, were eggplants. I'll admit I got excited. Not really sure how I feel about eggplant. I've never really cooked with them, and although I'll eat them when they're in a dish, they're not my favorite vegetable. BUT I was excited... something new! My eyes got big and I asked the woman standing near "Ke bo kae?" (how much?) and decided to splurge on the R2 veggie for experimental purposes. I grabbed the prettiest one because I'm not really sure how to judge and handed over the R2 coin. As I was heading towards the door with Synett, describing to her just what I may do with it... "I could slice it and fry it! I could look in my Peace Corps cookbook and see if they have any recipes! I could put it in a spaghetti sauce! Oh I wish I had some Parmesan cheese! I do have noodles though... I could just cook it up with some onions and garlic and eat it like that"..... Ben, the bookkeeper for Taposa, called after me. "Mmapula come here a second, I must ask you just what this is." And, yes ladies and gentleman, the THIS he was referring to was the eggplant he had just sold me. "Ben, didn't you just sell this to me?" "Yes, I did... it was grown just down the road 1 km or so." "Oh. Well, it is very nice. I am excited to try to cook with it, to see what I can make, and if it will taste good." "But, what is it? Will you write the name of it right here?" And that's just what I did. I wrote "eggplant" in the ledger, right next to the box recording how many cans of garden peas had been sold. I then described how I've eaten egglplant in the past and some suggestions on how it could be cooked. He thanked me and said he might just try one himself. Those few minutes were very Africa. Very Peace Corps. It's the little things like that, that happen everyday and keep me intrigued. I tell ya, you never know just what the day is going to bring.
2 comments:
That is a great story...I can only imagine how baffling moments like that are! I wonder who was growing it and whether or not they knew what they were growing!?
Yum! We grew eggplants in our garden last year, but they were very tiny. This may not be helpful, but before you cook it, you should slice it and then sprinkle salt on each slice. Then put a cloth between each slice and put something weighty on top of them all. This pulls out all the moisture so when you fry it it stays firm instead of going mushy! Good luck with it!
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