Short Stories: Food for Thought

For those of you who have traveled through many distant lands, you will know that what is generally accepted as edible in the western world does not apply to the rest of the world! Travelling in Africa can be somewhat of an interesting experience. It was in Botswana that I first realized beef is not always beef!

About eight years ago there was a serious outbreak of Lung disease in the cattle herd’s of the Botswanaian’s; the governments only solution was to set up road blocks and slaughter thousands of animals which crossed certain designated borders. The effect on local farmers was disastrous they were left with a tenth of their livestock. After long debates the government decided to replace the animals at the states expense- what do they replace them with? DONKEYS

An experienced eye will know its donkey when the meat is slightly darker than beef and a lot tougher- I thought it was just tough beef. After being told this it did not take much to put two and two together seeing all the donkeys scattered throughout the country-side!

It was in Malawi that I had a real eye opener! After a days travelling in a Mini Bus; where the door no longer slides open but has been modified to open like a car door (and tied shut with string). The boot no longer closes as it is to full (also tied shut), being built to hold twelve people; 20 being more like the norm. With dried fish at our feet in 40 degree heat. Believe me after a day like that all you want is something to put in your stomach a cold beer and a decent mattress!

We arrived in Senga Bay, greeted by the Chef; he told us we had a choice of lamb stew, beef stew or pan fried mopani worms. After our experiences with beef in Botswana that was immediately ruled out as an option and the thought of fresh mopani worms did not do much for my appetite! So the lamb it was. It arrived on pristinely shaped metal bowls, which just managed to balance upright. The chef had gone off for the night and I could not help but notice all the goats around. After gulping down a couple of mouth full’s it came to my attention that there were only three pieces of meat in the stew- on calling the waiter over and asking for more- he replied in broken English ‘’eehh yess so you want more gooat’’ Enough said!

After this incident our diet consisted almost entirely of fish- every day we would meet the local fisherman and buy butterfish from them; we then wrapped the fish in Banana leaves and put them over the fire to cook. As we all know, what might be a novelty once off soon becomes very boring when it is repeated, so after about two weeks of a solid fish diet, we decided chicken was a number one priority- nowhere to be found! It was only on consulting our taxi driver that he informed us- he knew a place where we could get chicken; which was on route to Cape Mclear.

About three hours into the trip the taxi driver slammed on breaks jumped out of the vehicle and went running into the bush like a mad-man, diving left and right trying to catch a chicken. Well he returned clutching the hen by its legs, accompanied with the owner and informed us that the chicken would cost $1. We were in no position not to accept the chicken and the rest of the locals in the taxi were all grinning with approval. So the chicken was handed over and after a couple of hours we named it Jack. Unfortunately we were forced to travel for two days straight and we sort of befriended Jack. So as you can imagine when we finally arrived to Cape Mclear there was a big game of numbers deciding who would slaughter the little hen. After much debating we all managed to avoid having to do the deed and we came to a deal with a local house owner as an alternative. The problem was we had to keep him with us 24hrs a day as if he wandered off one of the locals would have chowed him and if he was lucky enough to sneak past the people I am sure a dog would have nabbed him. Moral of the story- forget about eating chicken in Malawi!