Following my heart to Cameroon

I like food. I like people who like food–you know who you are. There are all the usual things: chocolate, cheesecake, blueberry pancakes, turkey bacon, butter chicken, the crespelle at Gio’s, etc. I am about to go on about the new foods (and new variations) I’ve discovered while I’m here. And if you think I’m going over the top, just think to yourself that I was originally going to write a whole post called “Ode to a Plaintain”.

About the plaintain–it’s the ubiquitous side dish here, like french fries or grits. It can be boiled or fried, green or ripe, pounded, eaten whole, sliced.

I knew I really liked Cameroon when I found out that my childhood favourite from Trinidad, fried plaintain, could be served with almost anything. Fried plaintain is usually made with a ripe plaintain that is quite sweet. The plaintain is sliced on the diagonal and cooked in a frying pan until the outside of the plaintain is brown and crispy and the inside is soft and yummy. There are lots of places to buy fresh plaintain and make it yourself. If you are in Douala, you take a taxi to COAF (quoif) and there’s a market there with all the necessaries. Green plaintain can also be boiled and eaten like potatoes as a side dish. You can also boil ripe plaintain and then fry it whole as a side, or just eat it boiled. (You get the idea.)

If you don’t like fish, Cameroon will be a very challenging and less tasty place for you. Cameroonians do many very yummy things with fish. The most popular types are mackerel, sole, bass and herring. Mackerel and bass are both used to make my favourite Cameroonian fish dish, poisson braisee. Mackerel is MUCH cheaper than bass and so is used more often. First, they take a whole fish and clean it thoroughly, then they use salt and an incredible rub marinade and cook the fish over a charcoal fire. William’s aunt has a place in Bonamoussadi that we usually go to and we get to sit in the cook shack. I like this for two reasons: it smells really good and the smoke keeps mosquitoes away. The fish is served with thin slices of onion, chili sauce and sides–either miandor (sp?) or fried plaintain. I usually get both.

Miandor is made from the casava or manioch plant. It’s in long strips and is actually kind of rubbery and tasteless, which makes it perfect for eating with savoury foods. I’ve never even heard of anything like it before. The process of making it is very involved, but in Douala it’s popular and usually available everywhere.

The other change my life dish is co-ci (ko-kee). Coci is like polenta, only I know it’s not made with cornmeal and it’s quite spicy. I was first served coci when I was in Cameroon last summer and William still laughs when he tells people how much I enjoy eating it. Because it’s so spicy, it’s usually served with something bland like boiled green plaintain or cassava.

My belle-souer, Yokoua, has made other dishes that I’ve really enjoyed. Fish can be served with sauce des tomates, which in Trinidad would be called “stew fish”, with sauce d’arachides and with mongo chobe (sp?). I’ve always loved stew fish and the peanut sauce is a very tasty variation. I enjoyed the mongo chobe, but it’s not going to appear in the top five anytime soon. Yokoua says that the main reason Cameroonians enjoy such a variety of dishes is the existence of the more than 200 tribes in the country. Each tribe has ways of preparing food that others made not have tried and the ones that become popular are known throughout the country.

The most challenging Cameroonian dish I have encountered is ndole (n-dolay), which is made with an extremely bitter plant that has to be washed and cooked and then mixed with a lot of ground peanuts to make a type of stew. You can still taste the edge of bitterness when you eat it. It sometimes has pieces of meat or fish in it for a full meal or it’s served as a side dish to a main meal. It’s enjoyable, but it’s not the kind of thing I could eat very often.

My willingness to eat so many Cameroonian dishes has made me a hit with the family, who are impressed with my openness to Cameroonian culture. My love of food has become an excellent way to overcome any language gaps.

Tags: Cameroon, fish, Food, Parenthood, Travel, Travel, Tag Index

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2005 at 8:40 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.