When people ask me what I will miss most about Haiti, the first thing that jumps to my mind is the food! It is so fantastic. Let me give you a little taste.
Sunday lunch: rice, bean sauce, and some kind of fried meat. This week it was chicken, but often it is Grilot, which is fried pork.
My favorite day of the week is Saturday because Madame Dominique, our wonderful cook/mom, makes me Fritay---an amazing spread of fried deliciousness. In the front, on the right, are fried plantains that you eat with Pickleys, a kind of spicy coleslaw. On the left is acra, which is made by grating a root vegetable, adding a bunch of spices and some dried fish, and frying it until it tastes like a gift from the gods. In the back are french fries! Don't worry, I was sharing with friends :)
Mme Dominique, frying away!
Breakfast and dinner aren't much to write home about--lunch is our big meal-- but I'll write home anyway. We have 2 of those rolls for each meal with margarine. At breakfast they'll throw in a banana, at dinner a bowl of porridge.
Rice and beans with beef. It has an awesome, spicy sauce, so you cut up that sweet potato in the lower left corner (yes, a purple sweet potato) and eat it together---so good!
This is one of my favorite dishes --- Mais with sauce pwa et legume. The yellow stuff is corn meal grits, which you load down with bean sauce. The stuff on top, though not the most visually pleasing, is a mixture of vegetables and meat with the most pleasing spice combination. It is super good.
Other foods we eat each week include Friday fish, Sunday Pumpkin soup, and Saturday dumpling soup! As far as fruits, we see bananas, tangerines, and mango on a regular basis. We also occasionally get a treat of sugar cane, which you chew to suck out the juice and then spit out the fibrous parts (shhhh don't tell my dentist!) Dessert is not a big thing here --- I've only seen it a handful of times, and usually it is cake with a delicious meringue icing or this boiled potato cake.
I am certainly going to miss this cuisine--- if anyone knows of a Haitian restaurant in Central NJ, let's go!
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