Bon appetit

I made dinner for my homestay family tonight. I had brought up the idea Monday night, saying “you know, Papa, I’d like to cook for the family sometime.” He replied, “well, we’ve been waiting. You said you’d do it so long ago, I didn’t know why you didn’t do it sooner. You can do it whenever you want.” News to me. I wasn’t aware I’d promised any such thing, though at that moment, a conversation about me cooking for the family wafted vaguely through my memory – I wondered if we’d had some miscommunication in French. “This weekend,” I promised, “Saturday or probably Sunday.”

So I found myself buying ingredients in market on Saturday. I had in mind a fairly simple meal, easy to make up on the spot without a recipe: fresh tomato sauce (with onions, garlic, green peppers) and pasta with a side of green beans with sautéed onions and garlic. I ran into a snafu this morning, though, when my homestay mother informed me that they had just run out of gas for the sole gas burner that they owned. I had a sneaking suspicion that this was an attempt to get me to pay to refill the gas container, though I kept this to myself. “I can wait to make dinner until it’s refilled,” I said. She didn’t respond. Whether or not the gas was gone, though, I knew that if I wanted to make dinner tonight, I’d have to use the traditional method of cook-fire. Seeing as how I’d already bought all the ingredients, and dropped about 1500 CFA on them (enough to feed me lunch for about three days), I wasn’t about to not make dinner.

So at around 4:15 this afternoon, I dragged my ass out of my room and began chopping with a dull knife, using a marmite lid as a cutting board. I prepared the green beans first and quickly discovered that cooking with a fire is not as easy as it may seem. The onions got burned before the green beans were fully cooked, so I had to take them off the fire, a little too crispy. No matter, I continued with the pasta – had my little sister put some water on to boil. The pasta cooked quickly, I got my little brother to scoop it out of the water with a large spoon, since I didn’t see any strainers available. Both my sister and brother questioned me at this point: was the pasta really done? Yes, I answered; in America, we often ate pasta al dente, I said. I could understand where their confusion stemmed from however. The only pasta I’ve eaten in this house is more than thoroughly cooked through, almost to the point of mush. This hadn’t really bothered me though, since it was usually mixed in with a general mush of a meal – potato, pasta, and a tiny bit of vegetables. I knew the pasta cooked al dente might be new to them, but wasn’t that the point? Cultural exchange.

The final step was the tomato sauce. I chopped up 14 small tomatos, four small green peppers, three onions, and a couple cloves of crushed garlic. Threw it all in a pot and let it simmer. My little sister laughed when I asked for sugar – but really, doesn’t good tomato sauce have at least a hint of it? As the sauce cooked, I started to worry that maybe I had underestimated, not bought enough. Usually my family only eats once or twice a day – dinner is often a big meal. What if there wasn’t enough food?

Silly me, I shouldn’t have worried.

About two and a half hours after I began, dinner was finally ready. I tried to gather up my various family members to eat. I was starving – my hair and clothes reeked of smoke, my hands were sooty and greasy from fanning the coals of the fire with a grimy plastic lid when the fire died down, my eyes still watered from breathing in too much smoke. I knew that we’d have to wait to eat until my father showed up. Where was papa, I asked? Taking a shower, my sister said. Should we wait for him, I asked. Yes, my little sister said. But I’m hungry, I replied. Then eat, she said. I was tempted to start, but I knew I should wait.

A half hour later, my entire family gathered around the table in the living room (save my mother), ready to eat dinner together. I was kind of pleased with myself – I thought the food looked delicious and moreover, my cooking had brought everyone to the same table to eat together for the first time since I’d been in their home. Usually, everyone eats in random parts of the house, the living room reserved for the most important people in the house (my father and I, obviously). I had not once before eaten with my siblings. My father happily asked me to explain what was for dinner. I showed him how I shoveled beans on my plate, then pasta, and then doused my pasta with the spoonfuls of tomato sauce. Pleased, and definitely amused at me, he followed suite. Then my siblings.

My homestay father gushed about how good it was, finished everything on his plate – “I didn’t know you were such a good cook! You should cook all of our meals!” My siblings didn’t serve themselves very hearty portions, and my sister (the youngest) didn’t finish what she had on her plate. I was again nervous that I hadn’t made enough – I knew they were saving some for my mother who wasn’t home yet. I shouldn’t have worried though. My mother’s response confirmed my sneaking feeling that the food was just a tad too foreign to them, and quite unappetizing.

When my homestay mother came home, my father pointed to the food and told her that what was left was for her. She lifted the lid from each casserole dish and examined the contents, perhaps unaware that I was watching her with anticipation. After she looked at the last dish, the tomato sauce, she made a face of disgust. She then sat down, added a scoop of pasta and about three pieces of chopped tomato to her plate, took two bites and proclaimed herself finished. “You didn’t like it?” I asked. “I’m not feeling well,” she said, “I don’t have an appetite.” Hmmm, I thought, my bullshit-meter buzzing in my ear, that sounds like something I would say when I don’t want to eat that fish head that you put on my plate. I guess Cameroonians and Americans politely decline food they find repulsive with the same innocent words.

As it turns out, I didn’t need to worry about there being enough, because there was a ton of leftover tomato sauce and green beans. The only thing they finished was the pasta. I asked my little sister if she didn’t like the meal. No, we all liked it, she said. But their hungry bellies and all the leftover food told a different story.

Despite the hard work, and the fact that no one liked my delicious, nutritious, vegetarian meal except for me (and maybe my homestay father), I was really happy I did this, and at least fairly amused at their response of disgust to my most simple of American dishes. For one, I hope the thought may have crossed their minds: “this food is very foreign – hmm, I wonder if Rebby ever thinks that way about our food?” Second, my little sister Abby seemed very tickled with the whole process of me cooking. From the beginning of homestay I’ve wanted her approval, in some bizarre fashion. But she’s a bit of an oddball, often grumpy, hungry or both, and asking me to buy her food. Her most recent development is running and hiding from me when she sees me walking down the street, though I cannot fathom why. Whenever she is asked to do a chore, such as cleaning dishes or cleaning the floor, or being sent to fetch something, she usually dawdles a bit first, sulking, scowling, knowing she has to do it, but wanting to refuse. Eventually, she’ll do as she’s told, frowning the entire way. Lately I’ve felt a bit defeated, like she just has a permanent scowl. In any case, tonight, she smiled and laughed with me (at me?) as she helped me cook dinner. And she did it willingly, for once, as if she was enjoying the experience. For once, helping out with chores didn’t bring that perma-scowl, but chuckles and smiles instead.

So, taking stock: a family goes to bed hungry but amused after watching the silly American struggle to use a fire to cook a meal that was just ridiculous (where was the meat?! The huge quantities of carbohydrates?!). A girl, at the bottom of a gender and age hierarchy, who gets dumped on quite a bit by every member of the family, got joy out of helping out with tasks that usually serve only to make her angry. And I got to make a meal that pleased my stomach (I’ll even get to have a tasty lunch of leftovers tomorrow). All in all, I'm pleased.