where’s barnaby? – Culinary Anthropologist

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Eggs that can’t be beaten
13th January, 2009 9:37 am Leave a Comment
Last night Barnaby stayed up quite late touring the bars of Takoradi, so when he got up this morning he was ready for a hearty breakfast. And when he went out into the street he realized that he wasn’t going to have much trouble finding one – every street corner was filled with little stalls, and every other stall was run by a friendly lady selling some kind of delicious-looking food.

So it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for: street egg. A big herby peppery omelette cooked fresh right in front of him – then stuffed into a big wodge of sweet doughy bread and cooked some more. Yum. Just the thing to get you ready for a hot day in the market – especially when you wash it down with a great big mug of hot condensed milk and sugar (or as it’s known round here, “coffee”).

And as he chewed thoughtfully (for him) on his egg sandwich, he thought back to some of his favourite parts of the journey. Chermoula sardines in Morocco, deep-fried fataya in Senegal, rice galettes in Mali, porc au four in Burkina Faso … and last night’s goat kebabs and spicy octopus, of course … they’d all been delicious, and they’d all been made and eaten on the street.

Perhaps this was no coincidence? The only disappointing food he’d had on the whole trip had been in restaurants and hotels. Street food must be where it’s at, he decided. And went up the road for some keliweli and spicy yam chips.
Better lait than never
18th December, 2008 4:25 pm Leave a Comment
Barnaby’s met so many cheese-makers on this trip that he’s starting to consider himself a bit of an expert. So since our cheddar-making experiments in Morocco he’s been a bit disappointed by the lack of dairy products. He met the occasional Fulani cattle-herder in Senegal and Mali, and admired their milk and butter, but that’s been about it.

So once he got to Burkina Faso he was quite excited to see just how much people like yoghurt. Apparently you can’t even open a telecentre here without a stock of high quality yoghurt to go with your fax machine and mobile phone cards. People will happily have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or just for a snack in between with a nice fresh baguette. Perfect!

Then he noticed their slightly disturbing tendency to pair it with offal. He’s never been a big fan of offal. But in Ouagadougou, he pulled himself together and gave it a try: a classic baguette, yoghurt and liver combo. Delicious! Meaty, juicy and rich, with all the dairy goodness he’d been waiting for. He might wait a bit before moving on to the brain, heart and kidney versions, though.
Better lait than never
4:25 pm Leave a Comment
Barnaby’s met so many cheese-makers on this trip that he’s starting to consider himself a bit of an expert. So since our cheddar-making experiments in Morocco he’s been a bit disappointed by the lack of dairy products. He met the occasional Fulani cattle-herder in Senegal and Mali, and admired their milk and butter, but that’s been about it.

So once he got to Burkina Faso he was quite excited to see just how much people like yoghurt. Apparently you can’t even open a telecentre here without a stock of high quality yoghurt to go with your fax machine and mobile phone cards. People will happily have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or just for a snack in between with a nice fresh baguette. Perfect!

Then he noticed their slightly disturbing tendency to pair it with offal. He’s never been a big fan of offal. But in Ouagadougou, he pulled himself together and gave it a try: a classic baguette, yoghurt and liver combo. Delicious! Meaty, juicy and rich, with all the dairy goodness he’d been waiting for. He might wait a bit before moving on to the brain, heart and kidney versions, though.
Life is a cabaret
15th December, 2008 7:35 pm Leave a Comment
A couple of weeks ago, when Barnaby was in Mali, he came across something very interesting in the Dogon village of Djiguibombo. Hidden away in women’s houses were huge clay pots of bubbling liquid: millet beer.

A little odd he thought, for a largely Muslim country, until he realised most Dogon pay more dues to their ancestors than to Allah.

Unfortunately for him this beer wasn’t quite ready to drink. Millet beer takes three days to make, and each day a different woman’s batch is ready. Having not quite yet fathomed the finer points of Dogon culture and society, Barnaby had gone to the wrong house.

But today in Burkina Faso, Barnaby couldn’t help but find the right place. While visiting the evening market in the (equally animist) Lobi village of Hélo, he found that every other stall was in fact a pub, or as they call it round here, a cabaret. One smiley lady with a big blue barrel of her home-made millet beer beckoned him in to her stall.

So he took a seat next to the men on the log and had a little calabash full to see if he liked it. He did. Quite like cider, he thought. So he had another bigger one.

Then someone got out the salty juicy chunks of pork, and Barnaby thought perhaps he’d arrived in animist heaven.
Wine from the treetops
13th December, 2008 7:07 pm Leave a Comment
Today Barnaby thought he’d get Anna something nice for her birthday. He’d noticed that she hadn’t been getting her usual booze ration recently, what with spending so much time in Muslim countries. He didn’t have any money to buy any, but recently he’d heard the villagers here in Tengrela (in Burkina Faso) talking about a special kind of wine they get from the trees.

This seemed unlikely, but in the early morning he climbed up a ronier palm tree to have a look – and found a big calabash full of juice. It didn’t look much like wine, but when he had a taste he realised it was already fermenting and just a bit alcoholic, although very fresh-tasting – a bit like fresh coconut juice. Delicious!

So he settled down with a bottle to wait for her to finish cooking (Awa was teaching her how to make pea beignets and peanut sweet potatoes – yum). But after a couple of hours waiting, he was really quite thirsty, and thought he should just check the palm wine was still OK.

And a good thing he did! It had been fermenting all day, and was much stronger now. She probably wouldn’t like the strong taste, he thought – much safer just to drink it.
Barnaby gets the hump
4th November, 2008 6:33 pm 1 Comment

Barnaby’s not speaking to us. He’s making a silent protest against our decision to eat camel brochettes today. (They were delicious, especially the chunks of hump fat.)

Normally he’s quite keen to try new things. But back in Merzouga on the edge of the desert he met Leila, who carried him gracefully through the dunes. He rather liked Leila.

So when he saw huge hunks of camel meat hanging up outside the butchers’ shops here in the Western Sahara, he was less than impressed.

Poor Barnaby. Maybe we’ll try to cheer him up tonight with some local oysters. As far as we know he’s never befriended any bivalves.

(Find out more about the popularity camel meat here.)
Pistils at dawn
30th October, 2008 6:34 am Leave a Comment
Today Barnaby got up before dawn, for the first time ever. He’d heard there was ‘vegetable gold’ growing up in the mountains around Taliouine here in Morocco. But all he could find were tiny green leaves growing in tiny square plots of earth.

Then Barnaby noticed a beautiful purple flower. He thought it was lovely.

Some women who were up at dawn too told him to pick the flowers, carefully pull out the bright red three-pronged pistils, dry them and use them as a spice in his tagines and couscous dishes. Great, thought Barnaby; he’d found the vegetable gold!

But then he found out you need to pick 150 flowers to make just 1g of spice. And picking pistils out of crocuses with paws isn’t easy. No wonder saffron‘s the most expensive product in the world!
Where the warka women work
27th October, 2008 9:22 am Leave a Comment
Ever since he got to Morocco, Barnaby has been searching for warka. He’d already learnt about yufka in Turkey and filo in Greece. So he was excited to hear that in Morocco they also love incredibly thin pastry – but have a totally different way of making it!

But could he find it? It kept turning up in food like the famous pastilla pie, and the little briwat pastries he saw all over the place. But nobody seemed to sell it on its own, let alone actually make it themselves – so where did it come from?

Well, today he found out. Hidden away in their homes down little alleyways in medinas all over the country, there are women like Khadija, sitting at big round hotplates, making warka to sell to restaurants and patisseries.

But rather than rolling the dough out like their Turkish cousins, they take handfuls of sloppy, sticky dough and smear it directly onto the hot metal. Ouch! thought Barnaby – especially when he tried it himself. It’s not easy, particularly if your hands are furry. Best leave it to the warka women …
Where the warka women work
9:22 am Leave a Comment
Ever since he got to Morocco, Barnaby has been searching for warka. He’d already learnt about yufka in Turkey and filo in Greece. So he was excited to hear that in Morocco they also love incredibly thin pastry – but have a totally different way of making it!

But could he find it? It kept turning up in food like the famous pastilla pie, and the little briwat pastries he saw all over the place. But nobody seemed to sell it on its own, let alone actually make it themselves – so where did it come from?

Well, today he found out. Hidden away in their homes down little alleyways in medinas all over the country, there are women like Khadija, sitting at big round hotplates, making warka to sell to restaurants and patisseries.

But rather than rolling the dough out like their Turkish cousins, they take handfuls of sloppy, sticky dough and smear it directly onto the hot metal. Ouch! thought Barnaby – especially when he tried it himself. It’s not easy, particularly if your hands are furry. Best leave it to the warka women …
Black and green and red all over
20th October, 2008 11:32 am 1 Comment
Today Barnaby was sitting under a tree in Morocco, minding his own business, when what should hit him but a shower of olives!

Way back in May in Turkey, he’d seen little flower buds on the olive trees. By the time he got to Greece the flowers were out. Then in Italy he saw actual olives, although they were way too small and hard to eat. Even in Spain in September, they looked ripe but weren’t quite ready. Finally, he thought – they’re falling off!

But when he took a closer look he realised they weren’t. There were wrinkly black ones, shiny fat purple ones, and hard green ones – all coming from the same tree. And in fact, there were ladders. With people up them, pulling the olives off the branches by hand. He thought maybe they were picking them too soon, but when he asked, they told him that it’s best this way – they wanted all three colours to cure and to make tasty olive oil with.

And when he tasted one, he found out they’re still too bitter to eat! He’s just going to have to wait until they’re cured.