Eggheads Anyone?-Peace Corps Grub

Common wisdom holds that cuisine is the easiest introduction to another culture. If the food from another country tastes good, what’s not to like about that ethnic group or nationality? After 19 months of working as Peace Corps Volunteers in South Africa, the Bond’s have learned about the tastes of this host country and enjoyed the bounty of this fertile land. Although water is a scarce resource, the native forests and farms yield multitude varieties of mushrooms, mangoes, shallots, litchis, guavas, papayas, sweet succulent squash, aromatic carrots, flavorful firm tomatoes and luscious avocadoes. The free-range chickens are plump and juicy with intense flavor and very little fat. The lamb is gamey and delicious. The pork is tasty and cured without nitrates so has a mild smoky taste. The varieties of sausage are endless and harkens back to the voortrekkers and their fabulous home recipes for wors. Braai (barbeque) is the unifying food among the many cultural and language groups in South Africa with everyone loving beef and a national holiday called “Braai Day.”

Ironically, food causes the most tension among Peace Corps volunteers and their host families. Most volunteers spend their two years living with a family (as we did our first two months of training) and eat with the family. Thus their diet may not have the variety of food as in the United States or the familiarity. Food habits are among the hardest to change. The Zulu’s diet in our area consists of mealy meal (pap) porridge, sauce for the porridge, vegetable- squash, chard, or beet root and rice for special dinners. Zulus love meat but cannot afford to eat it every day. All parts of the beef or chicken are eaten with a brand name of “Walkie Talkie” chicken (heads and feet.) The Zulus are careful cooks and take time to make the food tasty with sauce mixes. They do not like spicy foods. Thus comes the rub when a volunteer arrives as a guest and cannot eat his/her familiar foods because they are not available and the family cannot afford the American style ingredients. Volunteers are encouraged to purchase foods for the family and do their share of cooking but many volunteers come to Africa without the knowledge or experience to prepare their favorite foods. (Hint for Peace Corps applicants-Bring your favorite recipes with you and learn to cook before you get here-NO McDonald’s on every corner). Another problem is that food purchased by the volunteer becomes the property of the entire family-Ubuntu or community. So misunderstandings occur. (I remember a low point in training, everyone is calorie deprived at this time, when I had selected 5 perfect apples from the market to share with the family and they all disappeared within a few minutes with none for the hungry Bond’s). When we arrived at Mountain High, we decided to cook all of our meals in our one room flat off the business office and have enjoyed having a family life and seeing what can be created on a hot plate and occasional access to an oven.

Food is precious because it is so hard to obtain or grow here at Mountain High. Simple purchase of groceries requires a 2 hour taxi ride to town, a 1 km hike across town to the supermarket, purchase of the groceries and packing them in backpacks or large plastic tote bags, 1 km hike back across town to the taxi, a 2 hour taxi ride back to our mountain site and sometimes a 4 km hike from the tar road to the Hospital. Thus each item is carefully selected for size, durability and consistency with the meal plan for the week. No bags of chips on impulse or large roasts!

After many days in hotels over Christmas and recovery from wisdom tooth misery, Brendon decided to cook a celebratory South African dish on Friday night, “Bobotie”. This dish has Malay origins in Cape Town and is a fabulous concoction of beef or lamb, spices, fruits, nuts, chutney with a cream/egg topping. Originally it was cooked over an open fire in a special brown ceramic pot. Maybe the world’s best meat loaf or savory fruit cake! We found all of the ingredients and prepared the meat mixture. Trouble Hit! No eggs for the topping. It’s a long ways to run to the supermarket so I made a break for the Mountain High tuck shop. Every community in South Africa has a tuck shop, which is a very small convenience store, sometimes the back end of someone’s home. Alas although the shop sells shoe polish (good looking shoes and clothing are essential in South Africa), no eggs were to be found. A run to the Hospital kitchen and a plea for “Amakhanda” only drove the kitchen cooks into hysterics as I forgot the Click required to say eggs and instead asked them for chicken heads. They finally brought out 4 precious eggs and we were able to enjoy the Bobotie. This dish is a visual delight as the bay leaves stand tall in the custard looking like sails on the ship of good taste. Our first taste of Bobotie was in Darling where the satirist Evita de Perone had a topping that was thick and tasted of Mascarpone and Cream Fraiche. Alas his recipe not to be found.

INGREDIENTS:

2 medium sized onions, chopped
10 ml vegetable oil
40 ml butter
600 g ground beef or ground lamb
2 thick slices of stale white bread
125 g sultana raisins
60 ml flaked almonds
40 ml chutney
2 garlic cloves, crushed
10 ml masala (curry powder)
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp minced ginger
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
3 cloves
salt to taste
ground black pepper
10 bay leaves

Egg custard:
3 eggs
150 ml milk

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Fry the onions in vegetable oil and butter over medium heat until they begin to brown. Add the beef and brown for a few minutes. Place the beef in a colander and soak the bread in the juice that drains from it.

In a mixing bowl, combine the beef and all the rest of the ingredients except the bay leaves. Press the bobotie mixture into a deep oven-proof dish. Spike the bay leaves into the mince.

Beat together the eggs and milk and pour over the top of the mince. Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes until the custard has browned.

Serve the bobotie with geel rys (white rice cooked with turmeric, raisins and cloves), chutney, chopped tomato and onion, sliced banana and desiccated coconut. Serves 6 - 8 people.