The second chapter of Part I of my series on Guns, Checkpoints and Pesto, I will focus on the
Sense of Sight
Sight is associated to each culture's interpretations of esthetics. Only recently did the European Union repeal a 20 year old law which regulated fruits and vegetable sales within the Union, banning 26 types of odd and strangely shaped or discoloured ones! (Read very interesting BBC article on the subject: Click Here). The law basically stipulated that if your carrot was small and had a growth on the side, it was illegal to sell it. In addition to this esthetic absurdity, most fruits and vegetables in European supermarkets, have been coated with wax, giving them a shine, which makes them look like those fake plastic ones which are used for decorating kitchens with Made in China stamps on the bottom. Odd, absurd and frightening...
By contrast, in many developping countries, the more discoloured, deformed and dirty the commodity looks, the better it will sell. My experience in Eastern DR Congo gave me much insight on the cultural differences between "us" and "them" on issues of culinary esthetics.
While working with a humanitarian organisation in the Eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo a few years ago, I had the opportunity to travel throughout the Kivu, mainly South Kivu. A vast terrain bordering Burundi and Tanzania in the East, with Bukavu as its provincial capital, sitting on Lake Kivu. The province has suffered decades of conflict, with hundreds of thousands of refugees and IDPs. On a sunny day, I was in the town of Uvira, a sprawling city, which grew ten fold in only 2 years due to the return of refugees, during the years of relative stability then. I had the chance to visit the local market there, which, as you can imagine, was busy, smelly and full of flies. While making my way through the many stalls, I came across, what my Congolese colleague wispered to me as, a regional delicacy...
While my European stomach began to quiver, the goat's head's seller, was convincing me to buy it because once cooked, this meat (including the insides of the head and eyes), were deliciously tender and nutritious. Obviously, I kindly declined and went on my way, trying to steer straight through the crowd, until the smell of the meat was well behind me... Back at base however, my curiosity to taste this beast won over my stomach's desperate appeals and I took a bite from the grill, amusing most of the Congolese around me. I had just one thing to say after that: "Absolutely delicious". Teaching me a valuable lesson that "les apparences sont parfois trompeuses".
