Tastes Like Chicken

This morning I saw a man taking the fur off a dead pig on my way from work to the Cyber (internet café) down the street. A nice lookin pig too. He smacked it and it made a good blubber sound. Made me wish they made bacon here. (The internet at the office has been down for a week and a half, so I have to go to the Cyber to check my email. Everyone in the office is very frustrated and the internet provider says they're doing maintenance, but the Director's admin assistant says that they're probably having trouble with their supplier.)

As I sat in the Cyber which is on the 2nd storey of a building, I could see him gut the pig. One of those situations that makes me shake my head and think, "Wow, I'm in Africa." Luckily the Cyber is far enough that I couldn't really see too much, just that he was lifting innards out of the pig. I saw him empty out the intestines - and I only know that's what he was doing because I've seen my dad do it to make sausage.

mmm sausage. I could go for some nice italian sausage right about now. I miss Italian food!

A few nights ago I went to Diana's restaurant for a drink with Ludvert, because I wanted an excuse to hang out with Diana a little. She's really cool and owns her own little restaurant, and I think she would be a good person to get to know, except I think I'll have to lose her in the Ludvert divorce.

Anyway, I told her I was hungry and asked her what she could make me since I didn't really know the food they make that well. She asked if I wanted fries! SURE!! And chicken? SURE!! Yay something "normal"!

Fries are fries no matter where you are in the world. Good old trusty fries. The chicken, however, ain't your Maple Leaf chicken breast.

Ladies and gentlemen, chickens have lots of bones! And unless they're from a bountiful canadian farm, they're not very meaty. I had a lot of trouble getting the meat off the bones -- you really have to get your hands dirty when you eat meat here, because the meat is tough and you really have to rip at it with your teeth and your fingers.

On my roadtrip over the weekend we had chicken and fries again, and my colleague's friend Max actually had to help me get the meat off the chicken (with his knife and fork, not his fingers!) because he's more used to it. I acted like I wasn't hungry anymore, and invited him to eat off my plate, and he kept putting all these big pieces of juicy white meat on the side telling me to eat them... YUM! I think I need someone to follow me around and help me eat, cuz there were huge chunks of meat that I would have completely ignored, probably hidden behind a bone.

Another thing they eat are the sheep, which is what I had stuck in under my tooth the other day. Really tough meat, and they only ever serve it in small chunks and sometimes the chunks are all bone and fat. There are no steaks here. I very, very rarely see beef on the menu. One restaurant had burgers, and I ordered one, but they had pre-made patties that they heated in a toaster-oven. Mmm.

Along the road to Allada where the ladies sell the food, one lady had this weird BBQed rodent meat. Made me realize that the food here actually LOOKS like what it is. The chicken gets served with the ribcage and when you order the fish, you get the whole fish, and when you want fish sauce, you're sure to have a head in there too.

It made me realize how disconnected we are from the food we eat. The chicken is force fed to be huge and flavourful, with a little MSG for some added umph. We buy baby carrots in resealable bags... all they are are big carrots cut down and blanched so that they stay nice and orange. Who needs reality when you can have carrots from Mexico?

Everything here is fresh and "organic", except maybe the rice. The rice is always crappy white rice, which is surprising. It's not like they have rice farms or anything, and rice is cheap (thanks China!)(then again, what do i know, maybe they do grow it here) so I guess it's not that surprising. They eat more pâte which is yams or maïs pounded into a flour with water added to make a gunky gelatinous paste. Root veggies seem to grow well here. Carrots, yams, potatoes, corn (not that corn is a root veggie, but they seem to have a lot of it).

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to say that eating chicken here actually makes me think about the chicken I'm eating and that it once had a life. It's not something I thought of back home.