Peanut butter stew and Ramadan Tents

I borrowed a book of short stories from the college library to read as I'm trying to fall asleep or waiting for the bus. The stories are written by a Ghanese woman, Ama Ata Aidoo, and all relate to issues surrounding women in Africa.

A couple passages from the short story "Nutty" have stuck with me:

"Later it had occurred to her that Mistake Number One was trying to translate the names of our foods into English and other European languages, so that foreigners would understand them. End result? You explain the food, and that's not always helpful. Becuase no one wants to deal with strange ingredients." (p. 46)

Anyone who has been to a restaurant in Asia and seen "stir-fried crab ovaries" or "braised pig heart with tree fungus" can relate.

Here in Qatar, I've noticed that the Middle Eastern restaurants do not translate food names, but simply use the Arabic names, written in Latin letters. So they don't write "Eggplant mush" for Baba Ganouj, or "Chickpea puree" for Hummus. The Chicken Kofta could be called "Chicken Sausage on a stick" but it's not. It makes for (1) an intersting first visit to a Middle Eastern restaurant full of sampling surprise dishes (fortunately EVERYTHING is delicious) and (2) the feeling of a more authentic experience.

The story's main character, an African woman, recounts an experience she had when visiting a former roomate now living in America. The American woman prepared and proudly presented a 5-course meal in her friend's honour, featuring an "exotic" main dish. As it turns out, however, this exotic dish is actually a famous African "peanut butter stew" which the main character had made and served to her friend years back when they were roommates in Africa. What follows is this:

"She could hear strains of a popular highlife band, which she had once heard introduced on a radio station as 'world music'. The presenter had mentioned the band's name, but not where it came from. As though crediting the music with Africa would somehow take away from it. What she had felt then was not shame exactly. Must have been confusion. And here she was, with a delicious meal ruined for her, and thinking that in this global village where African music is only part of 'world music', maybe African food becomes edible only when it is part of an exotic universal cuisine."(p. 53)

As our world gets smaller, customs, foods, ideas are being shared among various cultures. Invariably, each loses at least a part of its true identity and origin.

Last night Darren and I and a group of 20-some people from our building attended a suhoor dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel's Ramadan Tent. It was a lovely night of entertainment as well as delicious food. (Watch Darren's blog for more details and pictures.) All the food (besides a few Western-style desserts) was 'Arabic' (tawook, shawarma, tabouleh, baklava, etc.) But I have no idea which was Lebanese, Lybian, Jordanian, Egyptian.

Because of reading "Nutty", I wondered how someone who was from the specific location where one of these dishes originated would feel seeing a group of Canadians enjoying the "generic Arabic" food. I also wondered how much ignorance it shows on my part for not being interested enough in the food's origins.

Either way, it was delicious - probably as delicious as the peanut butter stew was in the story.