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Food
One of my biggest apprehensions about coming to Togo was about the food. This is probably largely due to my Dad's story about his time with Canadian Crossroads in Sierra Leonne when he found a rat's tooth in his rice, and the fact that he lost 25 pounds in the first month there.

Fortunately I can say that Togolese food is generally quite tasty. I get to eat in a Hotel Restaurant every night, so I'm probably a little spoiled, but I do get a good go-round of the regular Togo foods! This section explores the food here with a little bit more depth.

Wednesday Nov 5, 2003
Grapefruits as big as my head

(Normal grapefruit on left, Monolith grapefruit on right)

A have a friend in Waterloo named R.T. She is from Uganda, and this journal entry is for her.

Allow me to explain... One evening after a meeting, a large group of people were humming around with nothing to do, and I wanted everybody to come try this restaurnant that Ian had introduced me to called Stanley's. It was one of those local stand alone burger joints that's not a chain and has a little bit of a homestyle touch to everything they make.

So, in my efforts to try and move the masses to Stanley's, I advertised by telling them about Stanley's great hamburgers, that they were huge, that they made HAMBURGER'S AS BIG AS MY HEAD!

R.T. rolled on the floor laughing, and I have heard her re-tell that story at least 5 times, every time we try going to Staneys.

After supper a few nights ago, out came desert. They were grapefruits, and THEY WERE AS BIG AS MY HEAD! I let out a squeek of disbelief, as Amedjie and Christine laughed at my new experience. All I could say was, "I've gotta go get my camera". So, I will say no more, and let the pictures speak a thousand words.

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I can't handle eating more than one and a half of these, at which point I think that all of my arteries clog and I can't go on. I often see these being sold "au bord de la route", and the side of the road.

They go for about 50 francs each (about 14 cents, the same as a Timbit).

In Ghana they call Botoquin "Goat's balls"... because that's what they look like, not but not because that's what their made of!

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"La Pate" is eaten with your hands. You grab a chunk of page, and then dunk the piece and your fingers right into the sauce. Getting my fingers covered in sauce isn't my biggest problem... My biggest struggle is that the sauce is often too hot for my fingers!

There are two types of pate, regular and fermented. Fermented pate is made by working the raw materials until you have thrown out just about every useful nutrient, at which point it tastes... Well... Fermented. It is apparently the preferred Pate for most women. It is the food that is most eaten in the Vogan region (where another two crossroaders, Robin and Odette, are staged). Fermented Pate is one of the foods that I do have a little bit of difficulty eating. (Christine loves la Pate Fermenté, lucky for me Amedjie can't stand it).

Well, wouldn't you know it, I happened to be staged in the area with most fertile soil in Togo, and the fruits here in Kpalimé (including fresh pineapple) come from just a few kilometres away! (by the way, did you know that pineapple doesn't grow on trees, or even in a bush, but rather it grown pretty much just over the ground in shady areas, with long leaves pointing away from it). Mmmmmm..... Fresh pineapple.... Droooool.

So, needless to say, I was quite ecstatic when one of my first nights in Kpalimé my host family served up some pineapple for dessert. Not only was it delicious pineapple, but they have a really fun way of cutting it. The pineapple is first cut into four, kind of like the way you would cut an apple into four. Then the centre core is cut off, and horizontal pieces are sliced in the pineapple shell 'bowl' and arranged in a very cool pattern.

I was about to dive right in, when Amedjie stopped me, and told me that I have to start taking the pieces that are nearest the top of the pineapple.

"Why?" you say? I'm glad you asked.

The top of the pineapple while very sweet, is the least sweet portion of the pineapple, while the bottom of the pineapple is the sweetest and juiciest (kind of like the way the centre of the watermelon is the best part, even though it's all good). So, you start by eating the least sweet part, and move towards the sweetest part, so that you end up happy when you finish the last, best, piece. If you START at the bottom, with the best piece, then the pineapple gets worse as you go along, and you finish off disappointed!

I didn't want to be disappointed by my pineapple, so I obeyed!

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The first time observer cannot tell the difference between FouFou and la Pate, but they are in fact very different. FouFou has a much stickier and chewy texture, while la pate is much more like squished rice.

FouFou takes a ridiculous amount of work to prepare. It requires a large pylon stick that is about 4 feet long, and a large heavy wooden mashing tub. The yams are put into the tub, then the pylons are use to mash them. Its kind similar to sledge hammering a stake into the ground, only it takes like 250 whacks instead of 5.

It is necessary to take a shower after making FouFou, because you SWEAT!

There is a very distinct rhythm and sound associated with the making of FouFou, which Amedjie calls "la musique de la FouFou", "the music of FouFou".

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"Those are oranges."

"What do you mean they're oranges, they're green?! How can you have green oranges (unless they are incredibly under-ripe)?"

Well, apparently that's just the way they are. If oranges reach the state where they are actually about to turn orange, then they are about to go really bad.

What also confused me about this was that Grapefruits (yellow as far as I knew) are ALSO green, which I found easier to accept, probably because grapefruit's name isn't "yellow". So, unless the green fruit is really big (and there are REALLY big grapefruits), I have no clue as to whether it is an orange, or a grapefruit.

I don't understand, but what does a Yovo know about these kinds of things?

It turns out that there are all kinds of crazy ways to eat and orange. (I really feel like I should call them greens). There is the standard slice in to six wedges method (seldom used), as well as the peel and separate method (also seldom used). In addition to these methods, there is this kind of, "cut into a flower shape then bite of the petals" method of eating. This is very hard to describe, so I won't try. The method that I am experiencing the most is where the outside of the orange is first "half peeled" and the innards sucked out. By "half peeled", I mean that you only take off the outer half of the rind, so that only a thin layer of white rind remains. This is the method of cleaning the orange. Then, a small piece is cut off the top to give a little hold. You put the hole up to your mouth, squeeze the orange, and suck out the juice.

It really is allot of work, Christine really gets a kick out of it whenever I try to eat oranges like this, because she can eat three in the time it takes me to eat one.

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