Eating in Togo

I hope you all had a fantastic holiday season. Team Savannes had a lot of fun. We got together at our new transit house for a couple days and watched our favorite Christmas movies, cooked up some great food, and went to the NRM Program Directors house on Christmas day for more food and drinks. Good times were had by all.
Getting together to eat is a big deal here in Togo. Whenever you are invited into someone’s house they feel as if it is their life’s work to make sure you eat more than you can handle. There are small variations in the types of food depending where you are in Togo, but there is usually a starch and a sauce and if you are lucky a meat. The starches are either rice (self explanatory), fufu or pate. Fufu is basically Yams that have been pounded in a mortar with water added, and has the consistency and look of mashed potatoes. The same thing goes for pate, but instead of yams they use maize. On their own fu fu and pate have a VERY bland taste, which is why the sauce is key. There is always sauce de tomate (tomato sauce) or sauce d’arichede (peanut sauce). These sauces are very thin but full of flavor and spice. Most volunteers are more partiale to sauce d’arichede but I am more of a sauce de tomate fan myself. The other types of “street food” that are common in most of Togo are Kolico, which is deep fried yams that resemble french fries, and sodja which is pretty similar to tofu. As you can see protein is hard to come by here in Togo. Malnutrition is a major problem in Togo especially in Savannes. It is not necessarily because people are not getting enough to eat. It’s more so that they are not getting enough protein and other nutrients. Volunteers are always talking about how nutrition Togo, and many community health volunteers do home visits and talk about how feed a family, while keeping in mind that that most families have a tight budget for food.
As much as we love fufu and pate, when volunteers get together we always seem to be cooking our favorite foods from back home. About once or twice a month several volunteers in my region and I get together and have family dinner at the transit house. We usually debate the menu for a couple hours, and then we head to market to buy all the ingredients. Some of my favorite memories here are all of us in the kitchen making everything from scratch. Pizza, Fish Tacos, Bean Burgers, Fried Chicken, Ice Cream Cake, and pot roast are just a few of the things we have made entirely from scratch with very limited recourses. On the Fourth of July, we even grinded the meat ourselves for the burgers. We are pretty much McGyvers in the kitchen. It seems like everyone has their specialty in the kitchen. I guess I am pretty famous for my pancakes and crepes, but I have also gotten pretty good at making tortillas. During training we were given a cook book that has been put together by volunteers in Togo over the years, called Where there is no Whooper (It’s a play on the health manual Where there is no Doctor) Funny title aside The Whooper has been one of the most important things that I have here in Togo. Own my own I have made Poptarts, Pancakes, Pasta Sauces, Calzones, veggie wraps, tuna cakes, coffee cake, and egg drop soup. Cooking in Togo is a great way to pass the time, and when I get back I will be able to share all the tricks I have learned in the kitchen.