On food and eating

Since eating is such a major part of each day, I thought I'd devote a post to describing Haitian cuisine as we have known it so far.

Like many North Americans, Haitians eat three meals a day, which are called (in translation, of course) food, big food, and food. Breakfast, eaten between 6:00 and 8:30 am, has usually been one of the following:
-An egg sandwich
-Coffee and white bread
-Mangoes, avocados, and cassava bread
-Peanut butter and bread
-Spaghetti
(Why spaghetti? Why breakfast? Why eat it with mayonnaise and ketchup? I'll try to get to the bottom of this.)

Lunch ("gwo manje" or big food), served between 1:00 and 5:00 pm, is usually:
-Rice, bean sauce, avocado, and freshly-squeezed limeade
-Rice, meat sauce, avocado, and juice
-Rice, fish sauce, avocado, and juice
-Cornmeal with vegetables and a tomato-based sauce

On Sundays there's a special soup (also eaten on January 1, Haitian Independence Day), that is really delicious. I'm not sure exactly what is in it, but it tastes sort of like a creamy squash soup with onions and cabbage. It's super good.

Dinner ("soupe"), served anytime after 7:30 pm, could include:
-Ginger tea and white bread
-Peanut butter and cassava crackers
-"Bouye," which is a highly-sweetened porridge made of flour boiled with star anise, cloves, and cinnamon.

We've been surprised at how sweet the food is in general. Haitians are not shy about adding sugar to anything.

I've actually had a few cooking lessons this week. I've learned how to:
-Mill corn
-Mill beans
-Sort through and clean rice
-Pound spices (in addition to the ones listed above, popular spices are garlic, scallions, and hot peppers. Alexis got a big laugh when she asked about adding ginger to the mix. Apparently ginger is only for making tea, not for cooking.)
-Prepare greens for cooking (unfortunately for me, this meant adding chunks of pork in with the spices, rendering the delicious greens summarily inedible)

Has it been difficult, you ask, to avoid eating meat? Not so far. Most meals are served in sections, so it's pretty easy to avoid the plate of meat. I've sort of adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to sauces, though. I have to admit that I did eat a chunk of meat served to me by our host-mother, because she gave it to me specifically and specially. Fortunately it didn't do too much damage to my digestive system.

Oh, the kitchen! We've seen two so far, in the homes of our two host families. One has a charcoal stove that looks like a metal tray on legs, and one has a gas stove with an oven (curiously, used for food storage) that looks like the usual North American ones. One has a double set of sinks with cold water taps, and the other relies on buckets of water toted from one of the many fresh streams running through this town. Both have a supply of plastic mugs, metal cups, and plastic serving trays for carrying the food to the table.

Bryan and I are both looking forward to being able to cook for ourselves once we move to Desarmes. There's a lot of good food available locally, and I think we'll be able to make some pretty interesting meals once we can experiment in the kitchen.