Comfort Food

French-fried potatoes. Oreo milkshakes. Moosetracks ice cream. Anything and everything produced by Publix bakeries. Fried chicken. Buttermilk biscuits with homemade blueberry jam.

The point of comfort food is that when you're feeling low, either physically or emotionally, you feel better.

I'd been warned by a COSing (close of service) volunteer that after a while, your body just can't handle American food anymore. I may have dismissed her wise words, because she is so well integrated that I doubted that she made sure to keep up her tolerance for high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. I figured that she must only be eating couscous and "legumes" (anything leafy and green). I fully anticipated that I would horde my American food and have a little every week, so that it wouldn't shock my system to get a treat. I also happen to be blessed with a stomach that seems to be able to handle just about everything (besides vodka).

This week I've been feeling a little blue - just a little homesick. I've been here long enough now that the novelty of everyday life (bucket baths, the market, moto rides) has started to wear off, but not quite long enough that I have any close Cameroonian friends. I needed the company of a fellow American to talk to about the good old US of A and to share in the comfort food feast I had planned:

beer batter fried chicken
green beans (you know, with the onions - what I would have given for a ham hock!)
mac and cheese (my one box from the US lasted me just over 4 months)
key lime pie

I made it all from scratch and am thankful to the depth of my soul for the fact that I decided to pack the Joy of Cooking. It was sooooooooo good.

It was worth all the work - trekking all over Dimako to find the chicken, getting a coworker to slit its throat, plucking it and cutting it to pieces, finding a lady to remind me how to gut it, boiling it, breading it, frying it, crying over the onions for the green beans, opening the can of sweetened condensed milk with a machete, etc.

I ate at 2 or so this afternoon; it's now after 8 at night and the smell of the chicken soup (made from leftovers) that permeates the air in my house is making me feel a little sick to my stomach. You know that Thanksgiving feeling? You know you ate entirely too much, but it all tasted too good for you to regret it? I feel that way, even as I lay in my bed dreaming of slipping into a 12 hour food coma.

I think it's happened though. I think my stomach, old Ironsides, has thrown in the towel on American food and craves plantain chips and Mambos (Cameroonian chocolate) for comfort.

Maybe this has to happen for me to settle into life here a little more? We'll see how my stomach and my colleagues' stomachs react to my homemade chicken soup tomorrow. I wonder if its magic is as effective on malaria as it is on the common cold?