This Saturday I went to Mongomo with my Spanish-Salvador friends. (These guys are a fantastic couple that work for a supervising company at our camp. They are my age and we spend a lot of time together - watching movies, jogging, preparing food. My Spanish benefits a lot from this friendship.) We wanted to visit a local markets.
The first one was oriented mostly on food. There's a variety of vegetables and fruits available at reasonable prices. You can also buy different types of dresses and other garments and jewelry for women. The atmosphere at the market is typical for this part of the world - loud African music, strong odors, people talking loud, bargaining...I love it.
On the other market is a wider selection of clothes, shoes, CD's. This one is not as live as the first one.
After finishing our market tour, we've decided to try some of the Guinean cuisine. Finally I've found a person crazy enough to do this with me. My Serbian friends here don't like to experiment with food - they stick with a traditional Serbian/USA food. We've found a restaurant ran by our friend's mom - couldn't just eat at a random place, cos we had to be sure we won't end up with a food poisoning. The menu was, hm, lets say interesting. We could choose from a mountain cat, a turtle, a pangolin (scaly anteater) and one type of fish. The first item on the menu seemed a bit too much for the first time and the fish was to "mainstream", so the two of us (the female part of a couple didn't want to participate in our feast) decided to share a portion of a turtle and a pangolin.
The first dish was the pangolin. It looks strange, maybe frightening as you can still see dents where the scales were. You only live once - I took a first bite and it tasted good. It reassembles a rooster meat but more gamy. The meat was in a spicy, hot sauce, typical for Guinea as they love their food very spicy. The only past of the pangolin that I didn't like was it's skin - it's just too gummy. The story here is that the meat of pangolin is some sort of aphrodisiac, but I didn't notice the effect :)
The second course of the day, the turtle, was surprisingly good. The look of the plate was, of course, discouraging (feet still had claws on them and all that), but the taste surprised me in a positive way. It was more or less like a chicken - tender and dry, but good. In both dishes meat consists only of muscles and bones, no fat, so it's healthy.
In the end, we've agreed that the turtle wins and that we'll return here some other day to try something else, maybe a crocodile or a snake.
A part of me feels like Bear Grylls.
The first one was oriented mostly on food. There's a variety of vegetables and fruits available at reasonable prices. You can also buy different types of dresses and other garments and jewelry for women. The atmosphere at the market is typical for this part of the world - loud African music, strong odors, people talking loud, bargaining...I love it.
On the other market is a wider selection of clothes, shoes, CD's. This one is not as live as the first one.
After finishing our market tour, we've decided to try some of the Guinean cuisine. Finally I've found a person crazy enough to do this with me. My Serbian friends here don't like to experiment with food - they stick with a traditional Serbian/USA food. We've found a restaurant ran by our friend's mom - couldn't just eat at a random place, cos we had to be sure we won't end up with a food poisoning. The menu was, hm, lets say interesting. We could choose from a mountain cat, a turtle, a pangolin (scaly anteater) and one type of fish. The first item on the menu seemed a bit too much for the first time and the fish was to "mainstream", so the two of us (the female part of a couple didn't want to participate in our feast) decided to share a portion of a turtle and a pangolin.
The first dish was the pangolin. It looks strange, maybe frightening as you can still see dents where the scales were. You only live once - I took a first bite and it tasted good. It reassembles a rooster meat but more gamy. The meat was in a spicy, hot sauce, typical for Guinea as they love their food very spicy. The only past of the pangolin that I didn't like was it's skin - it's just too gummy. The story here is that the meat of pangolin is some sort of aphrodisiac, but I didn't notice the effect :)
 |
| Pangolin |
The second course of the day, the turtle, was surprisingly good. The look of the plate was, of course, discouraging (feet still had claws on them and all that), but the taste surprised me in a positive way. It was more or less like a chicken - tender and dry, but good. In both dishes meat consists only of muscles and bones, no fat, so it's healthy.
 |
| Turtle |
In the end, we've agreed that the turtle wins and that we'll return here some other day to try something else, maybe a crocodile or a snake.
A part of me feels like Bear Grylls.
Нема коментара:
Постави коментар