Posts
Plants: (Yes, I’m blogging about plants because some have asked, and they’re different here)
Eddoes – a wide leaf that is eaten in Ghana, the root is eaten in Liberia
Palava sauce
Cabbage and palm cabbage
Collards
Tomatoes – “bulbs”=cherry tomatoes
Potato leaf – they eat the leaf here! Didn’t know you could do that…
Fever leaf – semi-bitter, used to release bowls (the liquid that comes out of it being mashed) and break a fever
Cassava – eat the leaf and the root, this plant is life
Bitter balls – look like peas but taste disgusting
Okra
Water greens
Yam – bush yam, wild yam (which is sweet)
Hot pepper (soup)
Spice pepper – sweet scent, black
Medigeta pepper
Plantain and banana trees look the same! (I’m from Ohio, ok, I don’t know these things)
Papaya is called pawpaw
Sousa fruit is that green fruit with white flesh
Topasoyea is pepper soup without oil
Greens is soup with oil
Sugar cane
Palm oil – mash palm seeds to make oil
Palm butter – cook palm seeds and mash into cream (a natural “anti-constipation”)
Kanel oil – used like castor oil (medicinal as well)
Sowa sowa soup is the specialty in Lofa but I don’t think I’ve eaten it yet.
Coca
Kola nut – traditional welcoming nut, shared with guests, don’t refuse, tastes kind of bad (kind of like tobacco would taste were I ever inclined to chew it), appetite suppressant. Addictive-ish.
4 comments:
So how's the food? I'm thinking alot of leafy veggies, some nuts snd fruit and maybe meat, most likely chicken. And responding to an earlier post: I don't think you should be an agent of cultural change, maybe cultural expansion would be better.
hooray!!! in depth information satisfying my curiosity about plants! :)
-p
pawpaw and papaya are different, silly. pawpaws are midwestern fruits. we even have them in michigan. they taste and look kind of like 4 inch mangobananas, but taste worse.
however, in some parts of the world, like where you are, people call papayas pawpaws, which is confusing. i figured you should know, though, so that when you get back to ohio... and see pawpaws in a farmers market... your brain doesn't get all twisted up...
Nick, nope, mostly fish. I wish there was more chicken, as it is in fact my favorite meat. The leafy vegetables are grinded or mashed into a paste that is then used on the fish (or other random meat). As for cultural expansion, I don't like that word, expansion. I think the problem is mostly that people get stuck in their ways, and I think actually my presence and communication of my ideas with as many people who will listen to me is all I can do. I have also been saying a lot of "as an outsider, i think" and "in the US, we" or "as far as I know" which at least makes me feel less like an imperialist, even if it perpetuates stereotypes that women are not confident in their opinions.
Paul, oh yeah! I forgot about Pawpaw in the US, that always confused me anyway. But you should know, bananas taste different here, pretty much everything is smaller and tastes different. it's not mass produced and seeds are as available. even tomatoes from my parent's garden are bigger than tomatoes here
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