FUSION COOKING OR BAD COOKING?

It’s early Sunday morning and I’m heading to the market with my 200 meticais (about $5) to do my weekly shopping of fruits and vegetables. I grab my lovely shopping satchel, which I had made out of the thick plastic that my sheets came in with capolana fabric on the outside, and wonder what it will be filled with.

I glance at the Peace Corps cookbook and dismiss my worry over my culinary ability. “Be creative and flexible”, I convince myself as I walk down the path to the field already bustling with people. I head to the “aisle” where woman are selling their produce, grown in their garden, neatly placed by quantity for the price. Tomatoes, onions, garlic, lettuce, potatoes, bananas, and mangos, are greeted into my bag easily because I don’t have to decipher what they are. I know my tomatoes.

My brow started to crinkle as I approach the green harvest separated from the lettuce. To me it all looks like pretty leaves, different shapes and sizes, all clean and green. Okay that’s what I need clean and green, to be experienced in my Mozambican cuisine (hey that rhymes!). I must have been staring at these leaves with a phobia because when I looked up I realized that there was a group of vendors who gathered together watching me. Now I’m feeling anxiety rupture inside! – I have to choose which pile of .20 cent greens that I can cook and eat!

So I start to talk to myself because I needed the company at that moment. “Calm down! Ask if those are bitter like the other ones you threw out.” “I don’t know how to say bitter.” “Make the face!” And that eliminates one pile. Ask which ones are sweet”. “Oh look, those are pumpkin leaves, and she is cleaning off the stems! This is good”. “Peanut butter is good. This is a hassle”. “Try one more, how about the leaves from the bean plant”. “Oh yeah the protein exudes into the leave?” “Maybe, just buy it, your audience is beginning to pity your stupidity, next time come with the housekeeper and leave your flip flops home!” “I’ll bring that recipe book, a pot and charcoal, and cook here.” “Let’s go home”.

RESULT: Garlic, onions, carrots, a bit of curry powder, and peanuts, sautéed with pumpkin leafs.

SCORE: TASTE: 6.5 EFFORT: 8 NUTRITION: 9 ASSIMULATION: 9.5

HOUSEKEEPER'S OVERALL OPINION: 3.5

Why? Here there is no variety on cooking; all things are made one specific way. There is only one way to make pumpkin leaves here: I talked to 5 people about this dish and EVERYONE replied: NO GARLIC, MISSING THE TOMATOES. This is one of the most amazing cultural facts that I’ve learned here, one staple ingredient, one recipe, no variation. Cookbook authors / fusion chefs would be a phenomenon here!

HEY, maybe I’ll do a fusion cuisine project – combination of cultures, resources, novice, and creativity! Have I stumbled on a women’s empowering group? Why do only the women cook? That would suggest passing the apron to the men. Here, the women in my generation – nope. MAYBE ALYCIA’S (MY DAUGHTER’S) GENERATION!