Bride’s Breakfast
Many people came into Douala for the wedding from Bafoussam and even an uncle from the North province. Most of the family stayed at Yokoua’s house in Bonanjo. There were mattresses leaned against the walls in the day and covering all the floor in the living room at night. One of the things that had to be coordinated was breakfast for so many people in the days before the wedding.
This led me to decide that I wanted to host breakfast on Friday morning (September 30th) to take the pressure off trying to interact with everyone on the wedding day and to assert a little of the non-Cameroonian culture in the festivities. I, of course, corralled my mother into this project and decided on smoked herring with roast bake as an authentic taste of our West Indian heritage. We bought all the ingredients at various markets in Douala, enough for about 15-20 people.
Mom had a great time seeing what she recognized at the market. We found dried sorrel and pomme ci-terre in the market as well. We had to keep reminding people that it wasn’t a “Canadian” breakfast except for the fact that we are Canadian–they definitely couldn’t order it at Golden Griddle. We had a bit of an adventure with Yokoua’s oven in trying to cook five roast bake evenly, but everyone was fed eventually. We also served Ovaltine and tea because that would be typical for breakfast as well. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any Fry’s Cocoa to make hot chocolate for a truly down-home Trinidad breakfast.
Breakfast was ready by about 10:30 a.m. and I served to most of the older people who were there and got to bond over food, even though we couldn’t really understand each other. It was a success in allowing me to feel like I’d connected with more of the family.
Tags: Cameroon, Food, Travel, Travel, Tag Index
beenile@yahoo.com
October 13th, 2005 at 11:56 pm
Hi Deborah:
I’m thinking about you! What an exciting time. Congratulations, and I look forward to more updates here in your blog. It’s very interesting and I appreciate the little slices of life in Cameroon. 😎
In the meantime, this is what you are missing here:
– an extraordinary fall weather-wise. It has stayed warm and almost humid right up until early October. We were still sitting on patios the first week of this month. Now it has turned cold, and the possibility of winter is finally becoming evident.
– Catherine the Great exhibit at the AGO (which is still under construction). She was really into symbolism, and styled herself after “Minerva”. Oh, and she really went in for lots of jewels and gold. I was trying to think what figure from mythology I could style myself after, but realized it would probably have to be Pandora. Oh well.
– New episodes of The Amazing Race (with four-member families this time!), Survivor, The Apprentice, Martha Stewart’s The Apprentice (oh ho you missed a good wedding cake challenge), and Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model.
– My 3rd annual Hallowe’en costume challenge!
– Budget time in the ol’ workplace, in which we scramble to try to get our numbers in but probably won’t have them ready on time because the website redesign has taken over our lives.
Hee hee, I’m delirious. Well, I don’t know about you, but it seems to me you have a little more excitement in your life at the moment. Enjoy, and I will drop by here again soon to see what is new and more exciting than in my own life!
Cheers,
Connie
October 14th, 2005 at 12:29 am
I forgot to mention: I must be psychic. Tonight I pulled my Fry’s Cocoa from the back of the cupboard (I haven’t looked at it in about 4 years) and spooned some into my yoghurt for no apparent reason. Now I know why I did that! Oh, and it looks like that cocoa has expired. 8-P
April 21st, 2010 at 1:31 am
This is a very nice post – thanks for sharing.. definitely going to bookmark!