Post by Lara, photo by Kevin
24th August, 2012
Look out- it’s another post about food! My brother Eric
informed me last week that my family has been pondering why it is that we’re
always talking about food here on our blog.
I guess there are several reasons, but chief among them is the fact that
we are foodies at heart, and in that regard we haven’t changed a bit since our
arrival in Salone. I reminded Eric that
if I had a blog in the states it would mostly be about food also, as evidenced
by the fact that every other Facebook update I’ve made in the past two years or
so has been a picture of what we made for dinner. Beyond that, familiar food is obviously a
comfort. It tends to both bring on and soothe homesickness a lot of the time,
and cooking gives us something to focus on for several hours which helps us
pass the long days. So hopefully that will help to explain why we’re always
going on about what we’re cooking and eating here in Salone. Soon enough we’ll
post some Salone recipes for anyone at home with an adventurous streak.
Our host father’s birthday was the last week in July, and
since Kevin and I will take any excuse to make delicious food that reminds us
of home, we decided to make a pineapple upside-down cake for Papa. We had been told that cooking in a Dutch oven
works pretty well, so we decided to go for it. Basic instructions are: Put the
biggest pot you have (that has a lid) on the coal pot with some rocks or empty cans
in the bottom. Whatever you want to bake
sits on top of the rocks or cans, and when you put the lid on the big pot it bakes
up just like in a fancy electric oven. Watch closely, though, since Dutch ovens
don’t have temperature gauges.
The end of July is the prime of pineapple season here, so
pineapples were incredibly easy to come by. We bought a vacuum-sealed package
of margarine, some brown sugar at the Supermarket, and basic yellow cake
ingredients at the local market. Since
we don’t have an electric beater, we took our time mixing everything to be sure
that it didn’t have sad lumps in it. In the states, I’m not usually one to mix
dry and wet ingredients separately, but here I think it’s imperative. We got the Dutch oven ready and poured the
cake batter over sliced pineapple, brown sugar, and margarine in the pot, and
set everything on the fire.
Around this time, our host father got home from work with
his birthday present from his boss- a Peugeot sedan that seems to be about 2
years old. Papa was ecstatic about his car, and came to the kitchen smiling and
saying he had had a very good birthday so far. The week before, we had made chocolate
chip cookies for our host sister’s birthday, and Papa had made a comment to the
effect that they were too sweet for his tastes, so up to this point we had
resigned ourselves to the fact that Papa might not be too excited about the
cake. Still, any excuse to bake a cake
is a good one in our estimation.
The cake took about an hour to cook, at which point we had
to let it cool before we could turn it over and serve it. The pineapple/sugar mixture stuck to the pan
a bit, as I’m sure is pretty normal when you’re baking in a steel pot over a
fire, so we had to scrape it out and set it on top of the cake. Here’s the finished product, not quite Good Housekeeping material, but we were
still proud:
The best part, though, was Papa’s reaction. He was almost as happy about the cake as he
had been about getting a car earlier in the day—that’s not an
exaggeration. He ended up saving about ¼
of the cake to bring in to work the following day, so he could share it with
his co-workers. The next day, our Mama
turned to me and said, “Gbessay, next week, I am making paynapul upsayd-don kek, you will teach me”. I was thrilled to know that the recipe went
over so well.
We’ve now made two cakes from the same basic yellow cake
recipe in our Peace Corps Salone cook book- both turned out phenomenally, in my
humble opinion. We’re very happy to have
introduced pineapple upside-down cake to our host family, since they decided
that it is now one of their favorite things. Sadly, pineapple season is drawing
to an end and pineapples are much harder to come by, so we may not be making
any more until next year. Our next endeavors will focus on pumpkin pie and
pumpkin bread, since those are coming into season just now.
I look forward to some new recipes!
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