Tiba: african food

The meals over the last several days have included delicious sampling of rice with gravy, mashed butternut squash, fried cabbage, meat, fried potatoes and a variety of other dishes. It also included Umnqusho (samp and beans in English), a very traditional meal of dried maize and beans cooked over several hours to create a thick soup. Often sour milk is served in the morning, which is pap (fine maize mealy meal) with soured milk poured over the top. To me it tastes a bit like gritty cottage cheese.

But meat is definitely the focal point of all meals. I’ve been strictly informed that a meal without meat is no meal at all. Chicken has been served with each meal cooked, but the several slaughtered goats, in addition to the large cow leg hanging in the sleeping room when I arrived, provided the bulk of the meal. While it is delicious, it is very heavy and not the type of food my digestive system can handle three times a day.

Eating is the pinnacle of hospitality in African culture, so it is difficult, it possible to decline a meal. Meals are always dished and served, and it isn’t appropriate for me to request to withhold the meat. Not to mention that the fact that meat is exalted in African culture, therefore declining meat would potentially cause significant suspect. Also, since I’ve eaten there so many times in the past, it is probably that it would be particularly offensive to decline.
I’m not sure if the pattern is showing, but it really equates to enourmous amounts of food which is often fried and very heavy. My poor digestive system doesn’t stand a chance. Although the case regarding my laptop is still open, I decide I must get back to Cape Town. My digestive system in full arrest, I dream of green salad. I prepare that afternoon to leave the following morning.