Ask an African: Food Stuffs

Dearest readers, I realize I left some of you hanging with my last post. Permit me to mention something else about myself. I'm the kind of person you can count on for good and sometimes grandiose ideas. However, I'm not the one you want to call on for the best follow-though. I realize this and truly do try to be a person of my word.

My last weeks in country, transition back into the US, and time with my family and friends proved to have consumed my time and efforts in the best sort of ways. I strongly doubt that any of you were too concerned, but some of you did ask questions. I haven't forgotten you or the questions you asked, and I did ask my friends while I was still in Africa. I just didn't immediately write them for you.

So, as promised, here is the first installment of Ask an African:

Question: What is your favorite food?

The most popular answer was rice and peanut sauce. Yes, peanuts in a hot, oily, and flavorful sauce. They think we're the weird ones for spreading plain peanut paste on bread and calling it a sandwich. This answer actually made me pretty happy, because it's simple. It may not have been what you had imagined, but most Burkinabè food is pretty basic: starch, veggies, leaves, lots of oil, and lots of maggi (bouillon cubes).

If you wanted some “weirder” options, there were a few other contenders:

Tô: [pronounced like english “toe”] One of the main staples of many parts of Africa, tô/nsima/pap is very popular. It's a … gelatinous blob … [for lack of a better term] made from fine corn or millet flour. For those of you from the South, think what happens to grits when they get sit on the stove too long. Now, I am slightly biased, because it wasn't my favorite. However, many of my American friends loved tô.

Now, the piéce de résistance: 

Caterpillars: Yes. Caterpillars. True, it's really just one people group [the Bobo] in my area that love these little grubs, but they are a significant portion of the population. In fact, my city hosts the annual caterpillar festival. Yes, I have tried them. Yes, I've had enough to last a lifetime. Those who do like them, love them, though. Some have even tried to smuggle thousands of them in luggage when traveling to Europe… Hey, at least he shrink wrapped them…