POPCORN, PASTA, and African PANCAKES

The letter P gives me a chance to talk about the all-important matter of food. I know; “food” starts with F, not P, but lots of our meals started with Ps… such as a big bowl of popcorn, as an appetizer! What a fabulous way to tide your hungry campers over until dinner was ready than by popping a big bowl of corn for them to snack on! Quick, easy and always delicious, we munched contentedly and chatted over our drinks until the main course was served.

 Funny, the first thing out of the kitchen at dinnertime (besides the occasional bowl of popcorn) also didn’t start with P, but rather S… as in soup. We had soup to start off every evening meal while we were in Africa, and it became something we all enjoyed so much that I followed suit and ate soup before anything else at dinnertime for a solid month after I got home. There is something so comforting about a hot bowl of it served up with a bit of bread; it reminded me of times in my childhood years when we stayed with my Italian grandmother in San Francisco and started every dinner with a bowl of alphabet soup! I don’t think it was to help us learn our letters as much as it was a tradition carried over from the land in which she was raised. In Africa my favorites were leek, mushroom and pumpkin soup.

 But back to the P’s. African pancakes were likewise a new breakfast food to me. A cross between a crepe and an American pancake, they were tender and delicious, and could be topped with any number of other items, from jams and honey to a big spoonful of beans. Beans on toast, common in Britain from what I understand, was also a breakfast of choice, particularly favored by Lazarus, our guide, when he had time to join us for the morning meal.

 The main dish every night was usually a big bowl of vegetables cooked in a tomato base that was served over pasta or rice. Occasionally there was a chicken or sausage entrée, but to accommodate some dietary preferences in our group, when booking our safari we had requested mostly vegetarian meals. They were as delicious as they were healthy, and all the more amazing because of the limitations of the camp kitchens.

There was such an abundance of food each day! Despite the fact that we returned to the platters repeatedly each mealtime for additional servings, sometimes it looked like we hadn’t even tasted the dishes, so much food was still left on the plates. A dessert of some kind was also served each evening. Our cooks went to such efforts to please us that we lingered long over meals and took extra helpings that we might not have eaten otherwise, especially considering the fact that we didn’t get much exercise each day but to stand up or occasionally climb on our seats for a better look at the wonders around us…to raising and lowering binoculars and cameras repeatedly, and to lift spoons and forks to our lips each evening. We laughed that the waistbands of our khaki-colored clothing seemed to be growing smaller as we lingered longer at each delicious meal! Truly we obeyed the Biblical admonition to “taste and see”… and surely God forgave us if we switched the words around a little bit to end each meal with a heartfelt, “Lord, that was good!”

 “Taste and see that the Lord is good…”

(Psalm 34::8 NIV)