Meatloaf Hops the Pond

Usually, we chow down on some variation of African curry with chicken (think mixed veggies, gravy, and chicken living in happy stovetop harmony) with pap (imagine if grits could be prepared in dry mashed potato form but be derived from corn) in Cato, but last night I got to play chef! I decided on meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and broccoli: the epitome of Midwest American fine cuisine. Everything turned out fantastically although I kept on confusing my family by refusing to call catsup tomato sauce. I even got my twelve year old sister to say that she liked the broccoli. (Whether that was truthful or not is another matter!)

Food in Cato is not done “family style” where everyone makes their own plate, but one person dishes in the kitchen and brings the food out to the rest of the family. I can’t tell how much of this is due to the fact that tables are actually coffee tables in living rooms (due to lack of space for separate seating) and how much of this is due to tradition. Either way, the disher (usually a younger member of the family) asks everyone else “how many spoons” they want to find out how hungry they are. (This led to much confusion on my part the first time I was asked.) The number of spoons is the number of (huge!) spoons of rice/pap/other starch you want on your plate and everyone gets roughly the same amount of curry after that. At first I was amazed at how much my family members ate (mama regularly gets 4-6 spoons which makes for a 3-dimensionally heaping plate), but have since realized that they don’t usually eat much during the day, so huge amounts of starch are good, cheap energy.

That aside aside (bad puns like these are the reason why I should not be allowed a blog), mama had about 4 spoons last night (and two pieces of meatloaf) and happily declared afterward, “That was good. I want more!” I think it was a success!

P.S. It was hilarious a) to see super American food sitting on the coffee table last night while we watched the news in Zulu and b) to see my host sister look for forks for 5 minutes because she insisted that we had to eat my food with a fork.