Cooking

What happened when we went to the market !
Tomatoes, coconuts, green bananas, peppers, yellow bananas, papayas, cassavas.

After having trailed as many times as humanly possible round the two local supermarkets – one of which is a large one with pretty much everything at triple the average French price, the other is a discount chain store spread all over Mayotte – and having bought various fruit and vegetables at little street markets that spring up everywhere – I had a go at cooking local food the other day. What I didn’t know was that it was going to bite back.

First on the list came jackfruit. The size of a decent rugby ball and about the same texture, I cut it in half to have a look at it and out came a white sticky liquid which instantly attached itself to my hands, knife, chopping board, table top and sink, and refused to come off. The next step was an emergency trip to Monsieur Bricolage to buy some white spirit. That sorted, I cut the fruit into slices and started taking it to bits. The glue kept on coming, so I chopped the middle part out and threw it away. The glue stopped. That was jackfruit. Needless to say, P won’t let another one in the house.

Next came green bananas. They’re commonly used as a vegetable here, generally chopped and fried, so we thought we’d have a go. Nowhere as peelable as their yellow counterparts, the green bananas were hard as nails and about as appetizing. We chopped the top of one and tried to peel it, only to have it spurt white stuff back at us, which, again, wouldn’t come off without my new best friend, white spirit. Somehow, I hadn’t thought of white spirit as an essential cooking tool. Silly me.

Then we tried peppers. Small, hot, red peppers. Which were slightly more powerful than we expected, even P was sweating by the time he’d finished eating. I thought we’d be rid of them after the first spicy meal, but they get in everywhere, even when buying normal spices in the supermarket. You think you’re just adding a bit of taste to your preparation, and you end up steaming at the ears. Quite interesting to watch, actually.

The latest development has been breadfruit. A football-sized hard green ball which is either boiled or fried, assuming you can actually get at it. Hard to cut into, and again, it produces latex, so that gets everywhere. Nice taste though, tastes like chips.