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MARTIN |
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Protein? No, thank you |
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There are so many Liberian dishes that I simply love to eat. Shockingly, it was even possible to eat Western food in Zwedru now. However, I still opted for African food which included a pile of rice with some sort of soup as a topping. My favorites included cassava leaves, pumpkin soup, beans gravy and palm butter. That said, there were also things served in Liberia that I just couldn’t do. My mother never served me bug-a-bugs, gbargor, kiss-me or portor. I never grew up used to these dishes and nothing will ever make me adapt. Perhaps you’ll be more flexible than me? | ||||
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............ | Bug - a- Bugs This is a seasonal dish in Liberia. I visited in the correct season (March and April) because I saw them all over my front porch, for sale in the market and even on my bedroom floor. In case you are interested, the going price at the market is fifty cents a cup.
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Bug-a-bugs are termites and it’s my estimate that there are more of them in Liberia than humans. They build huge towering mounds that can easily be twice as tall as me. Whatever those little critters do to build the mounds, they are built of very solid material. My local baker used dirt from a termite mound to make his baking kiln. During the right season, bug-a-bugs swarm towards lights in the night. However, unfortunately for the little critters, it must be the end of their life-cycle. They lose their wings and fall to the ground (I’m not sure which happens first.) and then squirm among a pile of lost wings until they die. My porch used to be filled with wings and bugs. And, if I accidentally left a light on at night, they’d crawl under the door and scatter across my living room. That was one of the few times I opened my doors to let neighborhood kids collect insects. |
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............ | Gbargor ........Now speaking of critters attracted to the bright lights at night, in addition to bug-a-bugs, there were gbargor in Zwedru this time around. I got the low down on this creature from Robert, a Liberian friend with the United States Embassy who I met on this |
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trip. In case you aren’t up on any of your African dialects, a gbargor is a rhinoceros beetle. Seriously? Those are things that just never should be eaten! Never! But, Robert assured me that most Liberian children have eaten them. He personally won’t eat them anymore. I’m not sure how much credit to give him for that decision. He still ate kitole, a bitter vegetable that was the worst food I sampled on this trip. I couldn’t remember the word until I associated it with kitty litter. That’s was it tasted like – used kitty litter. (Not that I have ever eaten any.) |
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............ | Kiss-me .........My friend, Daniel, introduced me to kiss-me near the end of my Peace Corps experience. I don’t know what took so long. I’d often eaten at his house. One time, he gave me a piece of meat that still had fur and a hoof. I confessed I only knew how to cook meat that came | ||
wrapped in plastic with no trace of hair or hoof. So, he took the meat back and invited me to his home for the first of many meals. On this particular kiss-me occasion, the soup served over rice was some kind of green paste. At first it looked like my favorite dish, cassava leaves, but looks can be deceiving. Upon closer inspection, it looked more like green slime and it tasted that way too. There was something like a rock in my soup. I put it aside on a plate where Daniel had put a similar rock. I was used to rocks in my rice. It happened on occasion. So, I didn't think anything of it although it was the size of a small marble. Finally, Daniel asked me if I knew how to eat "kiss-me". I had no idea what he was talking about. But, I soon found out that those rocks I place aside were "kiss-me". They were actually the top half of broken snail shells. To eat them properly, you press the shell to your lips and make a kissing sound as you suck those critters into your mouth. It was the slurping kissing sound that gave the dish its name. |
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Portor ........Okay, this isn’t even close to protein, but I had to mention it in this section on food I couldn't do. On my trip back to the capital, we stopped in at village in the midst of their market. That’s where I was introduced to portor. If you want to pronounce it correctly, don’t pronounce the “r”s. I forgot to take a photo of “poto” because I was just shocked. It |
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looked like a ball of black chalk about the size of a grapefruit. There was no chalk.There was no grapefruit. And, there was certainly no protein. Portor is dried swamp mud. Now you may understand why I was just too stunned to take a photo. If I were actually going to eat dirt, swamp dirt would be way low on my list of locations for gathering food samples. I was told it was strained to get out sand and other debris. But still, whatever was left behind still was at the bottom of a swamp! Seriously, if you have the money to buy portor, you should have the money for rice. It was beyond me how or why this all started. My guide couldn’t give me any further information. So, I asked around until I got some answers. |
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Copyright 2016 by Phillip Martin All rights reserved. |