food.

One of my favorite parts of travel has always been exploring all the different foods there are available, for better or worse. Thus, I cannot think of Germany without recalling fresh warm pretzels with a slab of salty butter melting between their doughy centers, nor of Thailand, where the hot peppers in one dish literally made me weep and break out into a full-body sweat. How glorious to drink a chilled Sauvignon Blanc in the region of New Zealand where these grapes grow, how wonderfully unpleasant to try a local favorite in South Australia: gelatinous pea soup with a meat pie floating in the middle, staring up at me like a big brown eye.

I was recently reminded of how much food is a strong indicator of culture in Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food.” He notes that you can tell how integrated an immigrant is in their new homeland by merely looking at their pantry. I thought about this considerably after reading his book during my second month at site. Taking stock of the foods I had (and didn’t have) in my hut, I felt fairly well integrated in the Malagasy culture, but recognized I could still do more. I wanted to take a month to just eat what they did. I wanted to, as Michael Pollan also suggests, eat only food, in its purest sense, instead of the stuff that passes for food-like products in the states: things that come in plastic wrap and are filled with preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated palm oil, food coloring and are made mostly from soy or corn.

This isn’t to say it would take a huge amount of effort on my part. I have not eaten the typical American diet for over ten years and there is pretty much nothing but real food available to buy in my village anyway. But there were certain things I would have to stop eating, treats I allowed myself to enjoy when I felt I needed a little boost, like a Clif Bar or a handful of trail mix. The real indulgences, like Peanut M&Ms or Cheezits, I store far away in my banking town Diego, for something to really look forward to once a month. (Hey, it’s the little things, ok?) Other things I would need to stop eating that I had bought in Madagascar: Nutella, powdered milk, chocolate, noodles, non-refrigerated cheese wedges. The only thing I was really, really going to miss was the Nutella.

First of all, I felt terrific. My diet consisted of rice, fish, beans, eggs and a small variety of vegetables: green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens called ananas, garlic, onions, ginger and a few fruits: bananas and oranges, mostly. Most afternoons I would head down to a little shack by the sea where a woman fries up mahogo, called cassava root in English, sort of like a potato and served with a cabbage or papaya slaw and ridiculously delicious.

Secondly, it takes a long time to cook real food here. Which is fine, I have always loved to cook. Dicing, chopping, mixing, converting raw ingredients into something pleasurable; these small acts in the kitchen have long served as therapy for me. But cooking here takes on additional elements, such as hauling water, working with unknown foods or not having an oven or enough bowls. Imagine what a glorious pain in the ass it was when my little two-burner stove ran out of gas! Then I was really learning how to live like a Malagasy! I spent several days cooking with my fatana mitsitsy, an alternative cookstove that uses charcoal. I didn’t realize just how luxuriously I was living until my gas ran out; instead of twenty minutes for rice and an hour for pre-soaked beans, cooking became an all-afternoon affair involving lots of squatting and smoke. No wonder the women here never stray too far from their kitchen huts, I was learning first-hand.

(to be continued soon)